EIBF: Linda Polman sparks the fieriest discussion yet, Polly Toynbee announces her Verdict

Book Festival events often provoke heated debate, but the discussion provoked by Linda Polman’s talk on War Games was probably the fieriest I’ve seen so far.

The book is a scathing criticism of international aid agencies’ activities in war zones. Rather than helping to bring about peace, she argues, aid efforts from the likes of Oxfam and the Red Cross are prolonging conflicts and fuelling the violence. Much of this is based on her experiences visiting Hutu refugee camps in the Congolese town of Goma, following the Rwandan genocide. There, Hutu “genocidiers” and thousands of civilians had set up shop after being expelled from Rwanda. Polmon says these camps were heavily militarised and were used to “keep the genocide aganst the Tutsis going,” and they owed their existence to the international aid money being poured in.

While Polman has plenty of criticism to offer, she’s more tight-fisted when it comes to advice about the future. She says that charities will have to learn to say no to some groups that request aid, and wants to have a sincere discussion about the future of aid spending

Veteran BBC reporter Alan Little and the Guardian’s Bob Fox were in the audience, and spoke in general agreement with Polman. However representatives of several charities were also present and were incensed at what they saw as an unfair misrepresentation of their work. Others listened with their heads in their hands as Polman spoke of not regarding child soldiers as victims in conflicts.

Polly Toynbee and David Walker came in with a slightly less critical verdict of their subject matter. The Verdict is their assessment on the 13 years of New Labour government in Britain, and the left wing journalist wants to “strip away the spin” and offer a detailed critique. It was eventually teased out of them that their overall verdict was 6/10 for the last government.

After taking a straw poll on the audience’s (relatively warm) opinions of New Labour the pair listed a long string of areas where they believed the party had failed and succeeded. They liked civil partnerships, increasing arts funding (“look at all of us here tonight!”), devolution, higher education and reduced crime. They didn’t like Iraq, ID cards and the 10 p tax rate, to name but a few. Labour relied too much on the thinking of the 1990s, Toynbee said, instead of changing with the world around them.

Both lists went on for too long to be described here, but it seems like the pair’s book will be one of the most detailed rundowns of New Labour’s 13 year stint in power.

Former Audit Commission worker David Walker might not have the massive public profile Toynbee does, but he probably came off as the more engaging speaker. The two are bitterly opposed to the new coalition government, which has recently announced the scrapping of Walker’s former workplace. The Q&A session brought out recriminations of Blair and Brown not doing more to tackle the right wing media and the banks.

In the coming weeks Labour will pick a new leader for itself - The Verdict should be high on the reading lists of those involved.