Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown with MP Rachael Maskell

We are pleased to be hosting former Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Central Hall this autumn to mark the publication of his much-awaited book, The Future Starts With Us. This practical and hopeful roadmap explores how to bring us back together, renew the global order, and set us on a more equitable and sustainable course.

Central Hall will be the perfect backdrop for this evening of vital political discussion. The event will be chaired by Rachael Maskell, who has served as the Member of Parliament for York Central since 2015.

Every day brings new evidence of a fracturing world order, with war, mass migration, economic disruption, and climate collapse filling our screens. At the same time, the erosion of civic life has led to an epidemic of loneliness, a loss of community spirit, and a growing sense that there is no common cause worth fighting for.

Drawing on decades of experience at the heart of global politics, alongside new research and original polling of nearly 100,000 people across forty-five countries, Gordon Brown reveals how global instability and civic decline are deeply connected.

His most urgent insight is that the future will not be decided by the declarations of presidents or prime ministers, or at international conferences and summits, but by citizens becoming actively engaged in their communities. The change we seek starts here and now – it starts with us.

About the Speakers

• Gordon Brown was the longest-serving Chancellor of the Exchequer in UK history and Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010. Today he is fully engaged in international development work, serving as the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and as the World Health Organization’s Ambassador for Global Health Finance.

• Rachael Maskell is the Member of Parliament for York Central, first elected in 2015, and will be leading the conversation as event chair for the evening.