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SNP, Plaid and Sinn Féin leaders expected to sign joint agreement in Cardiff

They will meet in their capacity as party leaders, rather than as officials in their respective governments. Leaders of the SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Féin are expected to meet…

Donations cap to be debated in wake of £72 million Reform gifts

Hundreds of hospitality businesses call on Burnham to lower VAT

Royal staff social club ticket and betting slips found during Palace restoration

Succession’s Brian Cox calls on government to bolster NHS for dementia treatment

Dentists and GPs offered training to spot early MND signs in UK first

Trump downplays AI risks as ‘things that won’t happen’

Drone may have been meant for Boris Johnson’s train, says Ukrainian railway firm

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COMMENT

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Sonia Sodha

The road to recovery

First in 1945, then 1997 and now 2024. The three times in history that a Labour government has been elected on a sweeping majority, crushing the Conservative incumbents. What Keir Starmer…

Simon Heffer

New protest laws would be extreme

Having been bored into a stupor by a supposedly Conservative government’s serial failure to be conservative, something Rishi Sunak said recently suddenly had a voice inside me crying, “Whoa!”. His…

Christopher Hart

Hedge fund

According to the great Dr Oliver Rackham, hedges may be the oldest manmade structures on…

Nathaniel Tapley

Passing as upper class

Lots of things from the 1990s are difficult to explain to your teenage children now:…

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

As headlines veer toward the apocalyptic – from collapsing ecosystems to vanishing species – it’s…

Nathaniel Tapley

Bonkers bunkers

In December 2023 Ron Hubbard, a security consultant from Texas (not to be confused with…

Michael Janofsky

Long division

Our good friend Kalyan, a gay Indian-American, was so distraught by rising discrimination against Blacks,…

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COMMENT

Sonia Sodha

The road to recovery

First in 1945, then 1997 and now 2024. The three…

Simon Heffer

Why Labour has to be conservative

Here’s a paradox for you: Britain is a conservative country…

Peter Phelps

Free for all

When you’re stuck in the swamp of a midlife crisis, there’s generally only two ways…

Wade Graham

The rewilding Republican

Some years ago, I saw the legendary radical environmentalist Dave Foreman give his famous “howl…

Peter Lawlor

Question time

A little while ago, I was invited to a small private dinner at a well-known…

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Perspectives

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Snob value

Philip Hensher

Looking down your nose at “common” behaviour can create a constructive social dynamic

Falling short of the Four Freedoms

Boris Starling

How Britain is failing Roosevelt's benchmark for a healthy democracy

Fantastic fungi

Nick Hunt

Why we should lose our fear of the ancient art of foraging

Snob value

Philip Hensher

Looking down your nose at “common” behaviour can create a constructive social dynamic

The many and the few

Amir Amirani

Reflecting on the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War

The 15-minute protesters

Fred Skulthorp

Green measures are stirring up populist dissent

Fake farm story

Joy Lo Dico

Shouldn’t we be doing more for British farmers?

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PEOPLE

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TCE The Interview The Interview - Front Page

BY

Gavin Esler

Martin Rees

The Astronomer Royal on existential risk, the historic £100 stipend his post still pays and why engineered viruses worry him more than nuclear war

In Conversation In Conversation - Front Page TCE

BY

Joanna Grochowicz

Michael Palin

The Python-turned-travel-chronicler on his new diaries, the dhow to Bombay that changed him and losing his wife Helen after 57 years

Reputations Reputations - Front Page

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Mic Wright

Caroline Calloway

The headline-hitting American social climber who found fame via a “faked” Cambridge application

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

Lynn Barber

The "Demon Barber" on art, smoking and 80 years of asking the awkward questions

Sally Phillips

The Smack the Pony comedian on Veep, faith, disability advocacy and the son who's changed how she sees what matters

Jeremy Bowen

The BBC International Editor on testifying against Karadžić at The Hague, a brush with bowel cancer and Cardiff bars he'd close during play

Ed Balls

The former Shadow Chancellor on his book Appetite, the Granita dinner with no polenta, and a midlife crisis going really well

Lucy Easthope

The disaster planner and recover expert on her book When the Dust Settles, the Welsh word hiraeth for aching loss and a friend's correct snack ratio for the bunker

Ronni Ancona

The comedian, actress and filmmaker on her mahout childhood ambition, the cat who smokes Rothmans and the wildlife agency she calls green spies

Doon Mackichan

The actress, author and Smack the Pony comedian on My Lady Parts, Ricky Gervais turning up to "improve" the show and spray-painting over sexist ads

Chris van Tulleken

The infectious diseases doctor, author and science presenter on what's really in our food, the politics of poverty, and his "anti-telepathic" twin

Wynne Evans

The GoCompare opera singer on depression, becoming a Welsh druid and being sent into Stephen Hawking's black hole

Robert Peston

The ITV political editor on his book Bust?, Trussonomics and the schools charity that's reached half a million children

Lord David Owen

The former Foreign Secretary and co-founder of the SDP on two centuries of British-Russian relations, Brexit and being Steel's pocket puppet

Dan Snow

The historian on the eighteenth century, a picnic with Hilary Mantel, and covering Britain in windmills

Wasfi Kani, CBE

The opera founder on Pimlico, the Merkel arts package shaming Britain and the racist messages that still arrive

Benny Higgins

The Glasgow boy who became a banker on Tesco, five marriages and Kwasi Kwarteng's brief reign of havoc

Tom Curry

The youngest England forward capped in 100 years, on meditation, mullets and Maro Itoje's scrambled eggs

Chris Smith

The former Culture Secretary on being the first male MP to come out as gay, the call from Mandela and what It's a Sin revealed

Craig Brown

The Private Eye satirist on Haywire, Liz Truss as comedy gold and going blackberrying with John Stonehouse

Joanna Lumley

The actress on a Malayan childhood, Genghis Khan beating Trump and the books she wants in her coffin

DBC Pierre

The Booker winner on Big Snake Little Snake the rabid dog he lied about and what Mexico taught him

Vince Cable

The former Lib Dem leader on Strictly, the Murdoch hidden mic and a Quaker chocolate childhood in York

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE – Q&As

Rosie Boycott

The first woman to edit a UK broadsheet on Spare Rib, addiction and the ladder Thatcher refused to chuck down

Mike Figgis

The composer and Leaving Las Vegas director on Timecode written as a string quartet, refusing the Hollywood club and missing his friend Julian Sands

Robert Peston

The ITV political editor on his book Bust?, Trussonomics and the schools charity that's reached half a million children

Doon Mackichan

The actress, author and Smack the Pony comedian on My Lady Parts, Ricky Gervais turning up to "improve" the show and spray-painting over sexist ads

Ed Balls

The former Shadow Chancellor on his book Appetite, the Granita dinner with no polenta, and a midlife crisis going really well

Michael Holding

The West Indies fast bowler on Why We Kneel, race in cricket and his over against Boycott

Lord David Owen

The former Foreign Secretary and co-founder of the SDP on two centuries of British-Russian relations, Brexit and being Steel's pocket puppet

Andrew Roberts

The Churchill biographer on George III, the 28 charges Jefferson invented and the Hamilton villain history got wrong

Rosie Holt

The actress and comedian behind the spoof Tory MP videos, on Partygate, Suella Braverman's "wokerati" and the Labour MP she fooled

Ed Vaizey

The former Culture Minister on meeting Tom Cruise at BAFTA, his cousin the American chant master and what really keeps him awake

Lucy Hughes-Hallett

The historian, biographer and novelist on her book The Scapegoat, her D'Annunzio biography The Pike, and why the King James Bible is the reason reggae lyrics are so gorgeous

DBC Pierre

The Booker winner on Big Snake Little Snake the rabid dog he lied about and what Mexico taught him

Benny Higgins

The Glasgow boy who became a banker on Tesco, five marriages and Kwasi Kwarteng's brief reign of havoc

Sally Phillips

The Smack the Pony comedian on Veep, faith, disability advocacy and the son who's changed how she sees what matters

Vince Cable

The former Lib Dem leader on Strictly, the Murdoch hidden mic and a Quaker chocolate childhood in York

Joanna Lumley

The actress on a Malayan childhood, Genghis Khan beating Trump and the books she wants in her coffin

Chris van Tulleken

The infectious diseases doctor, author and science presenter on what's really in our food, the politics of poverty, and his "anti-telepathic" twin

Daniel Howell

The YouTube comedian on his mental health book, overwatering a bonsai to death and Mr Blobby

Jeremy Paxman

The Newsnight inquisitor on lying bastards, the Enigma machine he was sent and his dog Derek

Dan Snow

The historian on the eighteenth century, a picnic with Hilary Mantel, and covering Britain in windmills

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CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Author Interview - Front Page TCE The author Interview

by

Helen Brown

“It is a religion that asks women to have many children and really sacrifice their bodies”

Hanna Pylväinen

The Whiting Award and Balcones Fiction Prize-winner discusses her novel The End of Drum-Time, the Lutheran church she left at 21 and growing up with seven siblings and thirteen aunts and uncles

Naomi Alderman

The novelist, gamer and Bailey Women’s Prize winner discusses tech billionaires, apocalypse bunkers, her fans Obama and Gates, and her new book The Future

Mary Beard

The classicist, Cambridge don and trustee of the British Museum discusses flamingo-brain feasts, gender surgery in antiquity and her book Emperor of Rome

Ruth Ivo

The former burlesque dancer discusses her fictionalised memoir of Soho life in Performance, the exhilarating freedom of club nights in her youth and “hatching” from an egg on stage

FEATURES

There’s always whisky

Miranda Seymour

Jean Rhys, literary genius and troubled alcoholic

Hymn to Hestia

Natalie Haynes

The forgotten goddess of the hearth

Zealots not harlots

Elizabeth Sharkey

How Quaker dissenters became England’s first feminists

FILM

Anything goes

Christobel Kent

POETRY

Blood Moon by Gillian Clarke

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

Things to Consider in the Design of Your First Space Suit by Harry Man

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

There's a Walrus on My Windscreen by Ian Humphreys

ART

Rock and Rigoletto

Laura Barton

CULTURE

The author Interview

by

Helen Brown

“People ask, is it prose or poetry? Put it on whichever shelf you want, I don’t fucking care!”

Max Porter

Award-winning British novelist, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers discusses his book Shy, Cillian Murphy at the Barbican and blocking a Chilterns road with branches aged ten

Sarah Hall

Novelist Sarah Hall on her Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted Helm, why it took over twenty years to write a biography of Britain's only named wind, climate collapse, "radical optimism," and the power of imaginative storytelling to transform how we think about environmental crisis

Tessa Hadley

The critically acclaimed novelist discusses her 1950s-set novella The Party, why female writers dread sex scenes and male writers don't, and starting her career at 46