Beyond Westminster

MEET THE PRESENTERS

ANDREW RAWNSLEY
Chief Political Commentator and Associate Editor of The Observer, Andrew has won a string of awards for his journalism, including the prestigious What The Papers Say award for Columnist of the Year and Journalist of the Year in both the Channel 4 and Public Affairs political awards. Andrew's ground-breaking and award-winning account of New Labour, Servants of the People, was a top ten bestseller in both paperback and hard cover. His latest book, The End of the Party, has been hailed as an authoritative account of the fall of New Labour.

ELINOR GOODMAN
Elinor Goodman was political editor of Channel Four news for nearly 30 years having cut her broadcasting teeth presenting Week in Westminster while political correspondent of the Financial Times. She left Channel Four news after the 2005 election with the aim of doing something outside broadcasting. She chaired the Affordable Rural Housing Commission, and was appointed a member of the soon-to-be-wound up Commission for Rural Communities, reflecting her lifelong interest in the countryside. But she couldn't keep away from the airwaves and returned to Radio 4 in 2006 as a presenter of Week in Westminster, Beyond Westminster and On Your Farm, thus combining the excitement of politics with the pastoral pleasures of exploring rural communities.

JOHN KAMPFNER
John Kampfner is Chief Executive of Index on Censorship, one of the world's leading free expression organisations. His latest book, Freedom For Sale, was shortlisted for the prestigious Orwell Prize in May 2010. In 2002 he won the Foreign Press Association award for Film of the Year and Journalist of the Year for his two-part series on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, called 'The Ugly War'. He began his career as a foreign correspondent with the Daily Telegraph. 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.

ANNE MCELVOY
Anne McElvoy is political columnist of the London Evening Standard and presents the arts and ideas programme Night Waves on BBC Radio 3. Anne joined The Times as a graduate trainee in 1988 and became a foreign Correspondent. In 1992 she became the paper’s bureau chief in Moscow. Thereafter she was Deputy Editor of The Spectator and Executive Editor of the Evening Standard. A regular broadcaster, she appears on Newsnight and Question Time among other programmes.

MICHAEL DOBBS
Michael Dobbs has never been far from the sharp end of politics. He was an adviser to Margaret Thatcher and John Major, Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, and between times managed to become a best-selling political novelist with House of Cards. He continues to produce best-selling novels that have won many awards. One newspaper described him as ‘Westminster’s baby-faced hit man’.