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Girl, six, dies in hospital after being pulled from sea alongside family members

Saja El-Khawas died on Friday after the deaths of Sara El-Khawas, 14, and her parents Hassan El-Khawas and Zeina Alayn on Tuesday in Shoreham-by-Sea. A young girl has died in…

Meghan ‘in talks for role in Guy Ritchie Netflix series’

Farage is ‘midwife’ of Holyrood pro-indy majority, Sir John Curtice says

Hundreds gather in vigil for family injured in horror wrong-way motorway crash

Murder inquiry launched after wildfire reveals human remains in woodland

Body found after passenger reported overboard from cruise ship

Burnham pledges to consult on national memorial for terrorism survivors

Wladimir Klitschko remembers ex-partner Hayden Panettiere on her 37th birthday

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Sonia Sodha

The pitfalls of assisted dying

One of the first concepts new students of philosophy are introduced to is Isaiah Berlin’s famous distinction between “freedom to” and “freedom from”: an illustration of the fact that giving…

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…

Peter Lawlor

Creative destruction

According to a quip once made by Peter Ustinov, “Just before the world blows itself…

Sam Fowles

Unfree speech

Free speech is “under threat”, or so we are continually told. Under threat from whom?…

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

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

Peter Phelps

Hopeful histories

“No news is good news”, the saying goes, but the reverse is also true. Good…

Sam Fowles

Might is not right

The date of 26 January 2024 may become a watershed moment in the history of…

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For some of the world’s best independent writing on the stories and ideas shaping our world

COMMENT

Sonia Sodha

The pitfalls of assisted dying

One of the first concepts new students of philosophy are…

Simon Heffer

Correcting our Grammar mistake

During the Blair years, when recalcitrant Conservatives longed for a…

Peter Lawlor

Rent in two

In this class-themed issue I want to touch on an important social distinction in the…

Michael Janofsky

Defensive positions

When I was a kid and the Cold War was in full bloom, we were…

Monique Roffey

Only connect

Last month I went to Susheila Nasta’s 70th birthday party in Greenwich, south-east London. I’d…

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Perspectives

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Free as a bird

Keggie Carew

A meditation on our complex relationship with wildness

Dollar fever

Frances Coppola

Competing currencies won’t unlock the world from the shackles of US financial hegemony

Silence of the lambs

Fred Skulthorp

The Left’s embrace of the covid consensus has badly impacted the world’s poor

Women have it good

Zoe Strimpel

Capitalism works for the sisterhood

Perspectives

The end of days

Boris Starling

If the apocalypse comes, we will almost certainly have brought it on ourselves

The young ones

Lily Webb

The new generation of men are emotionally literate and comfortable in their skin

The end is nigh for old politics

Lily Webb

The young are desperate for change

The wheel turns

Nick Hunt

Why doomsday scenarios appeal to our linear concept of time

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PEOPLE

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TCE The Interview The Interview - Front Page

BY

Gavin Esler

Sathnam Sanghera

The British writer who says our multicultural empire led to a multicultural society

In Conversation In Conversation - Front Page TCE

BY

Rowan Pelling

Ian Anderson

The leader of prog rock band Jethro Tull talks about the end of days, faith, fencesitting, Jacob Rees-Mogg and the band’s album RökFlöte

Reputations Reputations - Front Page

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Andrew Lownie

Earl Mountbatten

Re-evaluating the legacy of one of the last century’s most controversial leaders

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

Bobby Seagull

The author, maths teacher, broadcaster and quizzer on his book The Life-changing Magic of Numbers, dancing The Real Dirty Dancing and finding love on Netflix

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

Ed Vaizey

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

Vince Cable

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

John Lloyd

The Spitting Image and Blackadder producer on twenty-one series of QI, why he left satire at 36, and Radio Barking, the comedy station that never aired

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

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

Daniel Howell

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

DBC Pierre

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

Andrew Roberts

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

Rosie Boycott

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

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

Joanna Lumley

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

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

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

Benny Higgins

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

Robert Peston

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

Michael Holding

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

Rosie Holt

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

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE – Q&As

Katy Brand

The comedian on Leo Grande, Dirty Dancing as her Mastermind subject and the pilgrimage that made her an atheist

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

Andrew Roberts

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

Phil Hammond

The doctor, comedian and Private Eye columnist on the Bristol heart scandal, Jacob Rees-Mogg and why health is not what happens in hospitals

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

Ed Vaizey

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

Bobby Seagull

The author, maths teacher, broadcaster and quizzer on his book The Life-changing Magic of Numbers, dancing The Real Dirty Dancing and finding love on Netflix

Wynne Evans

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

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

Zandra Rhodes

The fashion designer on Divine, Freddie Mercury and 55 years of not getting pig-headed

Daniel Howell

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

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

Vince Cable

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

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

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

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

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

Robert Peston

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

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CULTURE

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Author Interview - Front Page The author Interview

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Helen Brown

“The vitriol online can really knock your confidence”

Cathy Newman

Channel 4’s first female news anchor discusses trailblazing women, internet trolls, sexual assault and her book The Ladder

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

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

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

FEATURES

Gothic delights

Elizabeth Sharkey

Exploring the history of a genre that first bewitched Elizabeth as a teenage Joy Division fan

Acts of sedition

Pauline F Kiernan

Shakespeare’s Richard II was pure treason, so how did he get away with it? asks the author

Hymn to Hestia

Natalie Haynes

The forgotten goddess of the hearth

FILM

Fevered imagination

Anne Billson

STYLE

Give cardis the slip

Christobel Kent

POETRY

There's a Walrus on My Windscreen by Ian Humphreys

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

Hermeneutics by Rebecca Hurst

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

ART

The wisdom of native art

Max Lunn

MUSIC

Man-made girl bands

Lily Webb

CULTURE

Author Interview - Front Page The author Interview

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Helen Brown

This is a book that faces the awful possibility of a wind’s death amid climate collapse

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

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

Francesca Beauman

The Persephone Books publisher discusses forgotten gems written by women and the imprint’s 150th book

Bee Wilson

The food writer, journalist, author and charity campaigner for TastEd discusses festive family rituals, celebrating Christmas as a newly single parent and her first recipe book

FEATURES