Conversation Drinks: Toby Litt on Vaclav Havel

Following the 23rd anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, Toby Litt invites you to raise a toast to Václav Havel – the playwright, essayist and politician who engineered the overthrow of the Soviet regime in what was then Czechoslovakia. How did he do it? By 'speaking truth to power' - politely but unceasingly asking that the government deliver the rights that were already supposedly guaranteed by national law. But Litt goes further, asking whether the same strategy could work now: after all, who would we approach, nowadays, to make our polite requests?