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DUP MP defends photo with masked men at Scarva protest

DUP MP Carla Lockhart said she ‘stepped in to ensure calm heads prevailed’ during a counter protest to a pro-Palestine march. A DUP MP has defended her actions following criticism…

Canary Wharf hosts largest exercise to test terror attack emergency response

Murdered Garda detective remembered 30 years on

Vow to increase defence spending to 3% ‘absolutely sacrosanct’ – Lammy

Mix of heavy rain and sun forecast for next week ahead of warmer temperatures

Lammy to back ‘resilient’ Starmer in any leadership race as PM vows to ‘fight’

David Lammy told JD Vance ‘you’re wrong’ after Henry Nowak case intervention

PM to host Zelensky and leaders of France and Germany for No 10 talks

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COMMENT

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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…

Monique Roffey

Only connect

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

Michael Janofsky

Long division

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

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

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

Nathaniel Tapley

Cradle of libertines

England likes to think of itself as “the cradle of liberty”. True, if you think…

Nathaniel Tapley

Bonkers bunkers

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

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

COMMENT

Sonia Sodha

Breaking the class ceiling

Aspiration and social mobility were at the heart of Tony…

Simon Heffer

An age without rival

It wasn’t long before Hallowe’en that I noted many of…

Sam Fowles

Might is not right

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

Lucy Moore

All that jazz

When we were finally released from lockdown in summer 2021, a hedonistic return to real…

Sarah Hall

Natural hazards

The first novel that truly affected me as a young reader was eschatological in nature.…

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Perspectives

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Free as a bird

Keggie Carew

A meditation on our complex relationship with wildness

The many and the few

Amir Amirani

Reflecting on the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War

The funk of flunk

Cosmo Landesman

There’s an art to failing gracefully

Flying the flag

Gavin Esler

The rise of Britain's new patriotism: loud, flag-obsessed and convinced the nation is falling apart

Perspectives

All that jazz

Lucy Moore

The carefree socialites of the 1920s can teach us how to let our hair down

Too broke to multiply

Róisín Lanigan

Women have it good

Zoe Strimpel

Capitalism works for the sisterhood

Muddle class

Joshua Mcloughlin

Social divides are increasingly ambiguous

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PEOPLE

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The Interview The Interview - Front Page

BY

Gavin Esler

Hein de Haas

The Amsterdam migration sociologist discusses the 24 myths he set out to demolish, why borders backfire and the Brexit paradox

In Conversation In Conversation - Front Page TCE

BY

Rowan Pelling

Dominic Cummings

The Brexit strategist on a start-up party he's drafting, Brexit, the covid inquiry, Whitehall and other shit-shows

Reputations Reputations - Front Page

BY

Andrew Lownie

The Duke of Windsor

How he actively engaged with Nazi Germany during World War II

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

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

Zandra Rhodes

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

Rosie Holt

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

Tom Curry

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

Benny Higgins

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

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

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

Joanna Lumley

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

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

Michael Holding

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

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

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

Lynn Barber

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

DBC Pierre

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

Ed Balls

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

Andrew Roberts

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

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

Kate Mosse

The author and Women's Prize founder on her book Warrior Queens, her great-grandmother written out of history and the woman who foresaw global warming in 1856

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

Rosie Holt

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

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

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

Wynne Evans

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

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

Lynn Barber

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

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

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

Katy Brand

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

Joanna Lumley

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

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

Michael Holding

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

Kate Mosse

The author and Women's Prize founder on her book Warrior Queens, her great-grandmother written out of history and the woman who foresaw global warming in 1856

Jeremy Paxman

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

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

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

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CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Author Interview - Front Page The author Interview

by

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

Francesca Beauman

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

Cathy Newman

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

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

FEATURES

Hymn to Hestia

Natalie Haynes

The forgotten goddess of the hearth

Zealots not harlots

Elizabeth Sharkey

How Quaker dissenters became England’s first feminists

Acts of sedition

Pauline F Kiernan

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

FILM

Poverty porn

Anne Billson

STYLE

Dressing for utopia

Christobel Kent

POETRY

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

Blood Moon by Gillian Clarke

Hermeneutics by Rebecca Hurst

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

There's a Walrus on My Windscreen by Ian Humphreys

ART

Art in an emergency

Max Lunn

MUSIC

Prisoner with a key

Laura Barton

CULTURE

The author Interview

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Helen Brown

“All I had ever wanted to do was write a novel. When I held the first copy, aged 42, I cried”

Emma Flint

The crime novelist on her book Other Women, the pathologist's memoir she bought aged twelve at Heathrow and twenty years of writing instruction manuals before her first novel

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

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

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