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

When government goes too far

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…

Mic Wright

Hold the blank page

As I sat down to write this column, a tundra of white space stretched out…

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 rewilding Republican

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

Nathaniel Tapley

Defenestration nation

Postmortems on the corpse of the Conservative party are much like those on real bodies:…

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COMMENT

Sonia Sodha

The road to recovery

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

Simon Heffer

An age without rival

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

Peter Phelps

Hopeful histories

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

Michael Janofsky

Fight madness with more madness

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

Christopher Hart

Hedge fund

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

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Perspectives

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Free as a bird

Keggie Carew

A meditation on our complex relationship with wildness

Beside the sea

Madeleine Bunting

English seaside resorts evoke both deep nostalgia and class divisions

Birth room battles

Milli Hill

Women are not being properly consulted about their wishes during childbirth

Perspectives

All that jazz

Lucy Moore

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

Birth room battles

Milli Hill

Women are not being properly consulted about their wishes during childbirth

The young ones

Lily Webb

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

Keeping Russia in check

Peter Hitchens

A wrong move by a fractious West could trigger all-out war

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PEOPLE

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TCE The Interview The Interview - Front Page

BY

Joanna Grochowicz

Charles Spencer

The writer, historian, podcaster and 9th Earl Spencer talks about boarding school trauma, class aspirations and the importance of speaking out

In Conversation In Conversation - Front Page TCE

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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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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

DBC Pierre

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

Tom Curry

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

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

Dan Snow

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

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

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

Michael Holding

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

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

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

Joanna Lumley

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

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

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

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

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

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

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE – Q&As

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

Katy Brand

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

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

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

Benny Higgins

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

Ed Vaizey

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

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

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

Vince Cable

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

Rosie Holt

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

Dan Snow

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

Rosie Boycott

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

Michael Holding

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

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

Andrew Roberts

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

Wynne Evans

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

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

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CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Author Interview - Front Page TCE The author Interview

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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

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

Hymn to Hestia

Natalie Haynes

The forgotten goddess of the hearth

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

FILM

Apocalypse now and then

Anne Billson

STYLE

Dressing for dinner

Christobel Kent

POETRY

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

Blood Moon by Gillian Clarke

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

Hermeneutics by Rebecca Hurst

There's a Walrus on My Windscreen by Ian Humphreys

ART

The art of perturbation

Rachel Campbell Johnston

MUSIC

Get Back

Laura Barton

CULTURE

Author Interview - Front Page TCE The author Interview

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Helen Brown

“When you see extremely violent sexual stuff on stage you always need to ask: who’s creating it for who and why?”

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

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