JOHN KAMPFNER

John Kampfner has had a 25-year career in international public life – spanning media, global affairs, UK politics, education, business, arts and the third sector.

His latest book, Why the Germans Do It Better, published by Atlantic, is his sixth. His previous books include the best-selling Blair’s Wars (2003), now a standard text in schools; Freedom For Sale (2009), which was short-listed for the Orwell Prize in 2010 and in 2014 The Rich, from Slaves to Superyachts, A 2000-Year History.

He began his journalistic career as a foreign correspondent with the Daily Telegraph, first in East Berlin where he reported on the fall of the Wall and unification of Germany, and then in Moscow at the time of the collapse of Soviet Communism.

He went on to become Chief Political Correspondent at the FT and political commentator for the BBC’s Today programme and Newsnight.

As Editor of the New Statesman from 2005 to 2008, he took the magazine to 30-year circulation highs. He was Society of Magazine Editors Current Affairs Editor of the Year in 2006.

In 2002 he won the Foreign Press Association award for Journalist of the Year and Film of the Year for a two-part BBC film on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, called ‘The Ugly War’. His film ‘War Spin’ received considerable publicity.

He now writes weekly for the Times and appears regularly in other newspapers such as the FT, Guardian and New European. He has made a number of programmes for BBC Radio 4 and World Service. He frequently appears on the BBC and Sky and has a weekly slot on Times Radio.