John Cody Fidler-Simpson CBE (born 9 August 1944)[2] is an English foreign correspondent who is currently the world affairs editor of BBC News.

[3] He has spent all his working life with the BBC, and has reported from more than 120 countries, including thirty war zones, and interviewed many world leaders.

He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English and was editor of Granta magazine.

Simpson was born on 9 August 1944 in Cleveleys, Lancashire,[4] but was taken to his mother's "bomb-damaged house in London" the following week.

[6] His parents separated when he was seven years old and he chose to remain with his father while his mother cared for his two half sisters.

Early in his career, the then prime minister Harold Wilson, angered by being asked whether he was about to call an election, punched Simpson in the stomach.

The three also undertook a voyage around Cape Horn and an expedition hauling sledges across the deep-frozen Frobisher Bay in the far north of Canada.

Simpson has received various awards, including a CBE in the Gulf War honours list in 1991, an International Emmy for his report for the BBC Ten O'Clock News on the fall of Kabul, the Golden Nymph at the Cannes Film Festival, a Peabody award in the US, and three BAFTAs.