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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

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…

Sam Fowles

Posh performance

I recently wrote a column for The National that provoked some, let’s say, passionate reactions. Two…

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

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

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…

Nathaniel Tapley

Cradle of libertines

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

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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

An age without rival

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

Nathaniel Tapley

Defenestration nation

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

Michael Janofsky

Defensive positions

When I was a kid and the Cold War was in full bloom, we were…

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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All that jazz

Lucy Moore

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

#MeToo returns

Charlotte Proudman

New high-profile cases expose deep-rooted misogyny

Perspectives

Snob value

Philip Hensher

Looking down your nose at “common” behaviour can create a constructive social dynamic

Deadly game

Nicholas Blincoe

Palestinians have been kicked around for decades – could football have something to teach politicians on every side?

One of us

Nicola Rollock

Social class and race are not mutually exclusive

The many and the few

Amir Amirani

Reflecting on the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War

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PEOPLE

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TCE The Interview The Interview - Front Page

BY

Gavin Esler

Henry Dimbleby

The food entrepreneur and writer one how our diet is killing us but politicians and big business don’t want to know

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

Simon Heffer

Chips Channon

Brilliance blighted by poor judgment

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

Vince Cable

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

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

Wynne Evans

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

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

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

DBC Pierre

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

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

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

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

Katy Brand

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

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

Rosie Boycott

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

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

Zandra Rhodes

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

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

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE – Q&As

Jeremy Paxman

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

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

Daniel Howell

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

Katy Brand

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

Dan Snow

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

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

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

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

DBC Pierre

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

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

Sally Phillips

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

Benny Higgins

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

Rosie Holt

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

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

Ed Vaizey

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

Craig Brown

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

Lynn Barber

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

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 TCE The author Interview

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Helen Brown

“Sex is the place where the animal body erupts into the life of the thinking mind”

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

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

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

Zealots not harlots

Elizabeth Sharkey

How Quaker dissenters became England’s first feminists

The politics of colour

Tina Gharavi

Tina Gharavi’s full response to the controversy surrounding Queen Cleopatra, a Netflix series about the identity of the legendary last pharaoh

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

Dressing for doomsday

Christobel Kent

POETRY

There's a Walrus on My Windscreen by Ian Humphreys

Hermeneutics by Rebecca Hurst

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

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

ART

Ashley Ford

The writer, essayist and podcaster on her memoir Somebody's Daughter, the burning-snakes lesson in never letting go, a childhood coded for shame and why curiosity has always outrun her fear

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