Alain was born in Cairo. His mother was Polish, his father French/Greek/Italian. He was on the Financial Times for 23 years and before that on the Daily Express. ( aka Alain Cass) He covered the events in Northern Ireland & the 1973 October Middle East war. He was the FT's News Editor from 1989-1995. He pioneered the paper's investigative reporting which won a number of awards. After he retired he learnt to fly (at 60)  and circumnavigated Africa in a single-engine Piper. Alain speaks a handful of languages. He lives in the Chilterns with his wife and Catalan sheepdog. He has 9 world-class grandchildren.  This site is dedicated to them 

The world is complicated. Explaining it needn't be. But I'm lucky. I live in a democracy where freedom of expression is taken for granted although increasingly abused and subverted. Brexit, Trump and Johnson may have turned truth on its head. The cancel culture speaks of greater intolerance. But as long as I don't break the law I'm free to say what I please. Others, as this map shows, are not so lucky. Some, many, die, trying. 

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I write about people, issues & places I care about. What interests me most is social justice and where that intersects with politics. How we can make a better world for our grandchildren? 

FREEDOM IS SHRINKING

Source: Reporters Without Borders

Key: the darker the colour on the map the less freedom for reporters

​I try not to be too shouty. Nearly 25 years on the FT taught me that. The FT is the best university on earth. 

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A journalist's  job - the part that matters - is to speak truth to power. To find things out that people don't want you to find out. And to set facts into context so they make sense. The rest, as the man said, is PR.

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Tank Man (my masthead) epitomises the challenge to totalitarianism. Taken at the height of the Tienanmen Square uprising in 1989 it represents heroism in its purest form. 

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Tienanmen erupted on my first day as News Editor of the FT. I was lucky to hold the job at a period of almost unprecedented political drama. Journalists thrive on drama and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

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The pro-democracy movement was crushed. (As it is being crushed in Hong Kong in 2020) .

  But there was better news that year when the Soviet Union unravelled leading to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. We thought then that liberalism would sweep the world. That judgement was premature. 

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Freedom of information is fundamental in any democracy as well to free markets, science and public health as the pandemic has shown us. But nearly half of the world’s population has no access to freely-reported news and information as this map shows. 

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Over the past two decades at least 80 journalists a year are killed in the line of duty. Many more are imprisoned most in China. The NGO Reporters Without Borders estimates that over 60% of those who died were murdered or deliberately targeted. We in Britain are not entirely immune to the impulse. The new Espionage Act proposes to place whistleblowers and journalists on the same par as spies. 

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Journalism matters. But the truth is indispensable.. 

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                                                                            Alain Catzeflis                                                                                    

Taking liberties

You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time. But, as sure as eggs is eggs, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

                                       Abe Lincoln

For Britain to thrive
the centre needs to 
let go

Inside Number 10

The new Tory
revolution is
devouring itself

In the pandemic

as in politics the 

Palestinians have lost

out. 

William Beveridge’s post-war brainchild has turned into an ever-expanding Heath Robinson machine. It is hugely expensive to administer, open to abuse, and endlessly breaks down. It’s not just a mess. It’s a monster

The end of welfare?

Time to look at Basic Income

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What do the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Boeing 747 have in common? 

Can the Tories 

hold the North?