Munira Mirza is the Deputy Mayor for Education and Culture of London. She is a former Development Director for the think-tank Policy Exchange and judge of the Samuel Johnson Prize. In December 2009 she appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Great Lives’, nominating political philosopher Hannah Arendt. She completed her PhD at the University of Kent. Her first book was The Politics of Culture: The Case for Universalism (Palgrave). She is currently writing Modern Babylon, a history of creativity in London.