Peel past and present

Martin Kettle: Douglas Hurd's detached view of Sir Robert Peel's achievements, which he presented at Hay, is only sustainable with the benefit of distant hindsight.

Hay festival: Pamuk without the politics

Orhan Pamuk appears in the news pages more often than he does in literary supplements, but at Hay today he only wanted to talk about his novels - and what a treat that was.

Asking the wrong man

Mark Lynas: It was an environmentalist's dream: a captive minister in a hostile crowd at Hay. If only it had been Gordon Brown and not David Miliband.

Mission impossible

Matt Seaton: It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it - edit a liberal newspaper in Israel, that is, as the Hay Festival heard.

Rain on the sidelines

AC Grayling: A discussion with a Labour politician about ID cards was a low point, but thankfully my weekend at Hay was ameliorated by other delights.

Fouling the water

Alastair Harper: In a discussion at Hay, the fate of a swimming pool became a neat metaphor for Zimbabwe's decline.

Hay festival: The politicians are coming

What's happened to Hay? Once novelists and poets were the centre of gravity, now it's scientists and politicians. Where better to show their human and cultured sides?