TIMINGS
Doors: 13:00
Starts: 13:20
Seated (unreserved)
Tickets: £16
Plus £2 venue levy
Age: 14+, under 16s must be accompanied by an adult
Presented by Brighton & Hove Speakers Festival
Click here to view all Brighton & Hove Speakers Festival events
Britain often feels stuck — the NHS under strain, an unresolved housing crisis, and a growing sense that nothing can change. Award-winning author and broadcaster John Kampfner spent three years travelling the world to test that assumption, visiting ten countries confronting shared challenges with imagination and courage.
Taiwan delivers outstanding patient satisfaction at a fraction of NHS cost. Vienna has built a century of affordable social housing. Costa Rica has tripled its economy while doubling its forest cover. Finland's schools prepare children for an uncertain future in ways Britain's system does not. These aren't utopian fantasies but practical, working models. In this session, Kampfner brings these stories to life and asks the central question of his acclaimed book: the solutions exist — do we have the courage to learn from them?
Kampfner began his career reporting from Berlin and Moscow during the collapse of communism, before covering British politics for the Financial Times and BBC and editing the New Statesman. His previous book, Why The Germans Do It Better, was a bestseller and Book of the Year across major publications. For an audience used to thinking differently about politics, this is a timely, hopeful and provocative talk. A Q&A session follows.