John Kampfner

Writer, journalist and foreign affairs specialist John Kampfner says the UK Prime Minister’s recent trip to Germany to sign a declaration on deepening ties is a sign of the changing relationship between the two countries.

Kampfner says that 80 years after V E Day, the UK is finally moving on from its vision of Germany as a warmonger and looking to it more as its closest friend or ally. And he looks at the similarities between the two countries and between their capital cities. Kampfner is author of two recent books on Germany. In Why the Germans do it Better, he looks at why Germany has become a model for others while Britain languishes in wartime nostalgia and fails to tackle contemporary challenges. In Search of Berlin looks at the city’s turbulent history and explains why it is now an irresistible capital to which the world is gravitating.

Kampfner began his career writing for The Telegraph from East Berlin where he covered the fall of the wall. He went on to work for the FT and the BBC and was editor of the New Statesman between 2005 and 2008. His other books include Blair’s Wars and Freedom for Sale: How we Made Money and Lost our Liberty.

Part of the Voices of Europe programme.