Perspective Media | Read the world differently

COMMENT

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

Correcting our Grammar mistake

During the Blair years, when recalcitrant Conservatives longed for a pledge to open new grammar schools, no class warrior threw himself into the battle against selective education with such ferocity…

Peter Lawlor

Rent in two

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

Peter Phelps

Time for a class act

January is San Francisco’s coldest and wettest month, and generally its quietest. That wasn’t the…

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

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

Keiran Goddard

Falling better

The only thing slower than writing books, it seems, is publishing them. The mechanisms of…

Sam Fowles

Might is not right

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

GET THE PERSPECTIVE NEWSLETTER

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

COMMENT

Sonia Sodha

The liberty ledger

One of the first concepts new students of philosophy are…

Simon Heffer

When government goes too far

Having been bored into a stupor by a supposedly Conservative…

Sam Fowles

Time’s arrow

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

Mic Wright

Past futures

When we reach for past visions of the future to measure against our reality, we…

Wade Graham

The new nomadism

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

VIEW ALL

Perspectives

VIEW ALL

The end of days

Boris Starling

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

The end is nigh for old politics

Lily Webb

The young are desperate for change

Defining women

Milli Hill

Hard-won rights are at stake

The wheel turns

Nick Hunt

Why doomsday scenarios appeal to our linear concept of time

Perspectives

Free as a bird

Keggie Carew

A meditation on our complex relationship with wildness

The risk factor

Robert Jackman

New fiscal regulations don’t address the thin line between scams and foolish investments

Birth room battles

Milli Hill

Women are not being properly consulted about their wishes during childbirth

Nuanced thinking

Lily Webb

Consent is the basis of intimacy, not a barrier to it

VIEW ALL

PEOPLE

VIEW ALL

TCE The Interview The Interview - Front Page

BY

Sam Fowles

Shami Chakrabarti

Lawyer and human rights activist Shami Chakrabarti defends the ECHR and discusses how notions of liberty are inverted to justify oppression

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 TCE

BY

Ben Wilson

Pasquale Paoli

The Corsican guerilla commander who inspired the modern quest for charismatic political leaders

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

Lynn Barber

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

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

Wynne Evans

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

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

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

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

Daniel Howell

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

Rosie Boycott

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

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

Dan Snow

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

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

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

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

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

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

Rosie Holt

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

DBC Pierre

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

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

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE – Q&As

Craig Brown

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

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

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

Rosie Boycott

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

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

Zandra Rhodes

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

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

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

Katy Brand

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

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

Dan Snow

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

DBC Pierre

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

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

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

Vince Cable

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

Benny Higgins

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

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

VIEW ALL

CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Author Interview - Front Page TCE The author Interview

by

Helen Brown

“Mum set up the company just after her fifth child, my younger brother, left home”

Francesca Beauman

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

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

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

FEATURES

Gothic delights

Elizabeth Sharkey

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

Zealots not harlots

Elizabeth Sharkey

How Quaker dissenters became England’s first feminists

Hymn to Hestia

Natalie Haynes

The forgotten goddess of the hearth

FILM

Playing through the nose

Anne Billson

STYLE

Girls will be boys

Christobel Kent

POETRY

Blood Moon by Gillian Clarke

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

There's a Walrus on My Windscreen by Ian Humphreys

Hermeneutics by Rebecca Hurst

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

ART

The herstory of art

Max Lunn

MUSIC

Get Back

Laura Barton

CULTURE

The author Interview

by

Helen Brown

“For too long, women writing literary fiction – especially the funny kind – were not being taken seriously”

Amanda Craig

The state-of-the-nation novelist on her book The Three Graces, why she's fed up with women becoming invisible and a mother who travelled from the Guardian to the Daily Mail

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

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