What Everyone Knows About Britain ... Except the British

In this event, celebrating the launch of Michael Peel’s book What Everyone Knows About Britain (Except the British),we bring together journalists from both Britain and abroad, to ask how different Britain might look when seen from the outside. What do British journalists learn from living and working overseas? What are the challenges of reporting on the UK for foreign audiences? How have Brexit, Covid and other challenges affected how Britain is perceived from the outside, and what does the general election look like from overseas? Above all, we ask what Britons might learn from seeing ourselves “as others see us”, and how Britain’s place in the world has changed over recent years and decades.

Copies of What Everyone Knows About Britain (Except the British) will be available for sale, so do join us to celebrate this book and to explore the many questions it raises.

Current Panellists include:

Michael Peel is the Science Editor of the Financial Times. He has held postings in Lagos, Abu Dhabi, Bangkok and Brussels, and been seconded in Tokyo as executive editor of Nikkei Asia. His books include The Fabulists: How Myth-makers Rule in an Age of Crisis (2021), A Swamp Full of Dollars: Pipelines and Paramilitaries at Nigeria’s Oil Frontier (2009), and – most recently - What Everyone Knows About Britain (Except the British): Home Truths From a Foreign Correspondent).

Annette Dittert is Senior Correspondent/Bureau Chief in London for the German network ARD and has lived in London since 2008. She has written for Prospect, the New Statesman and many other outlets and is the author of London Calling! Als Deutsche auf der Brexit-Insel.

Isabella Higgins is Europe Correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), based in London. She has also worked as a reporter in the Brisbane and Rockhampton newsrooms and previously covered Indigenous affairs for ABC News for online, radio and TV.

Tim Bale is Professor of British Politics at Queen Mary University of London and a specialist in comparative politics. His many books include European Politics: A Comparative Introduction, Riding the Populist Wave: Europe's Mainstream Right in Crisis (with C.R. Kaltwasser) and The Conservative Party after Brexit.

Chair: Robert Saunders is Reader in British History at Queen Mary University of London and Co-Director of the Mile End Institute. He has written extensively on the history of Britain and the wider world, from the US Civil War to memories of empire.

This event will start at 6.30pm in the Peston Lecture Theatre in the Graduate Centre, which is number 18 on this map of Queen Mary's Mile End campus. You can find it on What3Words at: https://w3w.co/fixed.reader.apples. Doors will open at 6.10pm and the event will be followed by a reception which all attendees are welcome to attend.