Ben Judah



Ben Judah (born 1988) is the political adviser to the Foreign Secretary David Lammy MP and the author of This Is London and Fragile Empire.

Early life
The son of author Tim Judah and Rosie Whitehouse, he was born in London. He is of Baghdadi Jewish descent. He spent a portion of his childhood in the Balkans before returning to London where he was educated at the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle. He attended the University of Oxford.

Career
Ben Judah is the political adviser to the Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy MP of the UK Labour Party.

Previously, he had a career in think-tanks. From 2020 to 2024, he worked at the Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. as a Senior Fellow. Judah has written for various progressive and conservative think-tanks on foreign affairs including The Center For American Progress (CAP) and Policy Exchange. His work has also featured at The German Council on Foreign Relations. From 2010 to 2012, he was a policy fellow in London at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank. He has also been a visiting fellow at the European Stability Initiative in Istanbul. From 2017 to 2020, he was a research fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C.

He has written three books. His first, Fragile Empire (2013), a study of Vladimir Putin's Russia, was published by Yale University Press. His second, This Is London, was published by Picador in 2016. The book was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction 2016 and shortlisted for the Ryszard Kapuscinski Award for Literary Reportage 2019. His third, This is Europe, was published by Picador in 2023.

Judah has written on foreign affairs for numerous publications including The New York Times and The Sunday Times. He has been a guest on CNN, BBC News and Channel 4 News and was a contributing writer for Politico Europe. He has interviewed and profiled French President Emmanuel Macron, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak. Earlier in his career, he covered the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, the 2010 Kyrgyz Revolution and the 2011 Tunisian Revolution and reported from the Caucasus, Siberia, Central Asia and Xinjiang.

In 2015, he was commended for the Feature Writer of the Year award at the British Press Awards.

Judah's name appeared on the Forbes 30 under 30 Europe list in 2016.

Personal life
Judah is married to journalist Rosie Gray.