John Kampfner

John Kampfner was Editor of the New Statesman from 2005-2008. He was the British Society of Magazine Editors Current Affairs Editor of the Year in 2006.

John is currently working on his new book, on global wealth and its assault on democracy, which will be published by Simon & Schuster next year. His previous books include the critically acclaimed and best selling 'Blair's Wars', an account of the former prime minister's militaristic hubris.

John has presented several documentaries for BBC television and radio. In 2002 he won the Foreign Press Association award for Film of the Year and Journalist of the Year for his two-parter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, called 'The Ugly War'. His film 'War Spin', exposing the propaganda behind the rescue of Jessica Lynch, received considerable publicity in the US and UK.

John is a regular pundit for all channels on politics and foreign affairs.

He began his career as a foreign correspondent with the Daily Telegraph, first in East Berlin where he reported on the fall of the Wall and the unification of Germany, and then in Moscow at the time of the coup and the collapse of Soviet Communism. On returning to the UK in the mid-1990s, he became Chief Political Correspondent at the FT and political commentator for the BBC's Today programme. Between 2002 and 2005, John was Political Editor of the New Statesman.

John is Chair of the board of Turner Contemporary, the most important visual arts project in the south east of England.

In 2008 John was appointed Chief Executive of Index on Censorship, one of the world's leading organisations that monitors abuses of freedom of expression.

He and his journalist wife Lucy Ash have two daughters and live in London.

Tony Blair has committed British forces to action five times in six years. No British Prime Minister and few world leaders have come close in contemporary history. What is it about this deeply Christian man that has given him such a taste for war?

In BLAIR'S WARS, award-winning journalist John Kampfner gives the inside story of a man who came to office with no experience of -- and virtually no interest in -- foreign affairs but who quickly moulded himself into a man on a mission: to punish dictators and spread democracy across the globe. To do that he fell back on the basic tenets of British diplomacy, a yearning for friendship with the United States and a reliance on the armed forces, while proclaiming his vision in the more modern guise of liberal intervention.

This mission has taken Blair from the first air strikes against Iraq in 1998, at the time of Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, to the Kosovo conflict of 1999; from the deployment of troops in Sierra Leone to George W. Bush’s attack on the Taleban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after September 11 -- and then on to the final and decisive war against Saddam Hussein.

Through conversations with the main players across governments in London, Washington, New York and European capitals, BLAIR'S WARS details the processes by which the Prime Minister has prosecuted these campaigns -- and why. It reveals in riveting fashion the failure of diplomacy that preceded the showdown with Saddam. It shows how Blair decided from the beginning of Bush’s presidency that he would allow nothing to get in the way of their close alliance; how he reconciled himself to war on Iraq at a very early stage; how he willed the intelligence material to conform to his plans; and how he dismissed the warnings of his diplomats that his approach would alienate him from countries he had so assiduously courted.

This is the story of a man who had convinced himself that his powers of persuasion could overcome all problems and defy all logic -- only to see those powers disappear.