How corruption works in British politics and corporations & how to fight it

Join us for a thought-provoking discussion and Q&A with renowned journalist and writer Simon Kuper on the topic of corruption in the UK.

The event will focus on Simon Kuper's latest book, "Good Chaps: How Corrupt Politicians Broke Our Law and Institutions - And What We Can Do About It," a powerful examination of the erosion of ethical standards and corruption within our political landscape.

Complementing this discussion, Dr Armando Castro, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Governance and Law in the Built Environment (BSSC, UCL) will share his extensive research an knowledge on the theme of corporate corruption, with a particular focus on the built environment.

Simon Kuper

Simon Kuper (born in Kampala, Uganda in 1969) was educated at Oxford University and Harvard. He has been working for the Financial Times since 1994, and now writes a general column for the newspaper, on topics from politics to cities.

He is a British-French dual citizen who lives with his wife and three children in Paris. He is the author of several books including Football Against the Enemy (winner of the William Hill prize for Sports Book of the Year 1994), Ajax, The Dutch, The War: Football in Europe During the Second World War (2003), and – as co-author with Stefan Szymanski - Soccernomics (2009).

His recent books include The Happy Traitor, his biography of the double agent George Blake (2021) and Barça: The Rise and Fall of the Club that Invented Modern Football (2021), which won Britain’s Sunday Times award for Football Book of the Year. His Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK, appeared in 2022 and became a Sunday Times bestseller. His Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century and Good Chaps: How Corrupt Politicians Broke Our Law and Institutions - And What We Can Do About It both appeared in 2024.

He has won several awards for his journalism, ranging from the Manuel Vázquez Montalbán prize for sportswriting in 2008 to the British Society of Magazine Editors’ prize for Columnist of the Year in 2016 and 2020.

Dr Armando Castro

Dr Armando Castro is the director of the Centre for Sustainable Governance and Law in the Built Environment and an Associate Professor at the BSSC, UCL. Dr Castro’s research is interdisciplinary with an emphasis on Management themes but also spans across the fields of Law and Finance. More specifically, his research interests are in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) topics.

He has conducted studies and published articles and reports focusing on: anticorruption strategies for firms, sustainable governance, the voluntary adoption of ESG standards, and legal considerations in the built environment. Dr Castro holds a PhD in Management from Imperial College London and was a visiting PhD student at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He also holds a Master in Public Administration (MPA) from the London School of Economics(LSE), a bachelor’s degree in economics (cum laude) from the University of Trento and an English and Welsh law conversion course.

Host or Publisher The Bartlett