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Teenagers in England to be offered new Vocational GCSEs under Government reforms

Employers are being asked to provide an additional 200,000 work experience placements for pupils aged between 14 and 16. Teenagers in England will be able to study new Vocational GCSEs…

Rubio concerned Ukraine war could spread as Russia harries UK and allies

Burnham: Labour conference will show it is ‘time for Britain to believe again’

Tories would ban long-term benefit claimants from buying alcohol and cigarettes

Falklands row escalates as UK accuses Argentina of ‘unacceptable’ harassment

Poison seller ‘robbed victims of chance to recover from struggles’, court hears

Sophie joins Strictly and Traitors stars to mark 80 years of Mencap

Mother and three children killed in house fire were ‘loved beyond measure’

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COMMENT

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Sonia Sodha

Breaking the class ceiling

Aspiration and social mobility were at the heart of Tony Blair’s “education, education, education” pitch in 1997. They are similarly echoed in Keir Starmer’s vision for Britain: he has repeatedly framed his desire to be…

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 Phelps

Hopeful histories

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

Sam Fowles

Time’s arrow

“Lest we forget” is carved into stone in village squares, town halls and city monuments…

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

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

Wade Graham

The new nomadism

Thrust into the global warming era, there’s much handwringing about how to build, and increasingly…

Christopher Hart

Hedge fund

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

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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

New protest laws would be extreme

Having been bored into a stupor by a supposedly Conservative…

Mic Wright

Hold the blank page

https://www.perspectivemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/mic.mp3 Listen to this article As I sat down to write this column, a tundra…

Michael Janofsky

Fight madness with more madness

Most of my friends and I live in a bubble (Los Angeles) within a bubble…

Guy Shrubsole

English pastoral

Guy Shrubsole explores England’s buried tradition of land reform, where less than one percent of…

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Perspectives

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All that jazz

Lucy Moore

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

Guns and poses

Michael Burleigh

The Ukraine invasion is changing the future of warfare

Baby Doomers

Róisín Lanigan

Falling birth rates are a sign of existential angst

Fierce courage

Rick Stroud

How a Belgian princess, a waitress and a British nurse risked their lives during WWI

Perspectives

The end of days

Boris Starling

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

Reviled swimmers

Claudia Cockerell

Restricted access to clean waters leads to legal action

La La land

Joan Harrison

The road to Hollywood is paved with anti-ageing procedures

A ban on thinking

Mic Wright

Even contemplating protest now risks arrest

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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

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Rowan Pelling & Peter Phelps

Rory Stewart

The former MP talks about global conflict and the possibility of his return to front-line politics

Reputations Reputations - Front Page

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Simon Heffer

Chips Channon

Brilliance blighted by poor judgment

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

Dan Snow

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

Sally Phillips

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

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

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

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

Wynne Evans

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

Benny Higgins

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

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

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

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

Katy Brand

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

Craig Brown

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

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

Andrew Roberts

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

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

Ed Vaizey

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

Rosie Boycott

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

Joanna Lumley

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

Daniel Howell

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

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

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

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

Craig Brown

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

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

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

Tom Curry

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

Robert Peston

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

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

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

DBC Pierre

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

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

Andrew Roberts

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

Dan Snow

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

Sally Phillips

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

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CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

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

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

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

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

Zealots not harlots

Elizabeth Sharkey

How Quaker dissenters became England’s first feminists

FILM

Fevered imagination

Anne Billson

STYLE

Girls will be boys

Christobel Kent

POETRY

There's a Walrus on My Windscreen by Ian Humphreys

Blood Moon by Gillian Clarke

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

Art is not a luxury

Rachel Campbell Johnston

MUSIC

Raye against the machine

Laura Barton

CULTURE

The author Interview

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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

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

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