Perspective Media | Read the world differently

LATEST HEADLINES

Strait of Hormuz shipping hits ‘crisis-era lows’ as conflict risks spreading

The renewed hostilities in the Middle East lead Donald Trump to issue a foul-mouthed warning to Iran. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has hit “crisis-era lows”, a UK-based maritime…

No further action to be taken against Polanski over social media image – police

Stars pay tribute after death of ‘loyal and brilliant’ publicist Neil Reading

Springsteen and Sheeran pay tribute to ‘one of the greats’ Glen Hansard

Shamed funeral director accepts he is ‘hated and despised’ pariah, court told

How Hansard called out division, busked for the homeless and marched for Ukraine

Reform MSP reports Aamer Anwar to police over hate speech claims

Serial killer to die in prison as police review four deaths at homeless hostel

MORE NEWS

COMMENT

VIEW ALL

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

An age without rival

It wasn’t long before Hallowe’en that I noted many of the significant women in my life – including my wife and the editrix of this august publication – were devoting…

Lucy Moore

All that jazz

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

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…

Peter Lawlor

Rent in two

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

Guy Shrubsole

English pastoral

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

Sam Fowles

Time’s arrow

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

Mic Wright

High society

In 1989, Richard Hoggart wrote in his introduction to George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan…

Peter Phelps

Free for all

When you’re stuck in the swamp of a midlife crisis, there’s generally only two ways…

VIEW ALL

Perspectives

VIEW ALL

The end of days

Boris Starling

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

Put AI in its place

Susie Alegre

And that’s a job for human rights experts, not tech billionaires

The funk of flunk

Cosmo Landesman

There’s an art to failing gracefully

Beside the sea

Madeleine Bunting

English seaside resorts evoke both deep nostalgia and class divisions

Perspectives

The end of days

Boris Starling

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

Virtual appetites

Sanjana Modha

Hits from a fusion food influencer

The wheel turns

Nick Hunt

Why doomsday scenarios appeal to our linear concept of time

Know thy past

Gillian Mosely

Current shocking violence in Israel and Gaza has its roots in ages of conflict and injustice

VIEW ALL

PEOPLE

VIEW ALL

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

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

BY

Lucy Ward

Catherine the Great

The enlightened empress who inoculated herself to protect her subjects and advance science

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

Sally Phillips

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

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

Dan Snow

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

Tom Curry

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

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

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

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

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

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

Craig Brown

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

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

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

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

Zandra Rhodes

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

Joanna Lumley

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

Rosie Boycott

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

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

Ed Balls

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

Benny Higgins

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

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

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

Ed Vaizey

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

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

Sally Phillips

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

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

Rosie Holt

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

Lynn Barber

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

Wynne Evans

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

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

Benny Higgins

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

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

Dan Snow

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

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

Robert Peston

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

Katy Brand

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

Daniel Howell

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

VIEW ALL

CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Author Interview - Front Page TCE The author Interview

by

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

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

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

Hymn to Hestia

Natalie Haynes

The forgotten goddess of the hearth

Acts of sedition

Pauline F Kiernan

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

There’s always whisky

Miranda Seymour

Jean Rhys, literary genius and troubled alcoholic

FILM

Anything goes

Christobel Kent

POETRY

Blood Moon by Gillian Clarke

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

Hermeneutics by Rebecca Hurst

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

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

ART

Prisoner with a key

Laura Barton

CULTURE

The author Interview

by

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

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