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

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…

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

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

Lucy Moore

All that jazz

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

Michael Janofsky

Fight madness with more madness

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

Peter Lawlor

Question time

A little while ago, I was invited to a small private dinner at a well-known…

Peter Lawlor

Creative destruction

According to a quip once made by Peter Ustinov, “Just before the world blows itself…

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

Correcting our Grammar mistake

During the Blair years, when recalcitrant Conservatives longed for a…

Nathaniel Tapley

Passing as upper class

Lots of things from the 1990s are difficult to explain to your teenage children now:…

Peter Lawlor

Rent in two

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

Sam Fowles

Time’s arrow

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

VIEW ALL

Perspectives

VIEW ALL

Free as a bird

Keggie Carew

A meditation on our complex relationship with wildness

I post therefore I am

Róisín Lanigan

Uncovering the online persona

When machines get creative

Khaled Bazzi

AI is forcing us to rethink what human skill is worth

Perspectives

Snob value

Philip Hensher

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

One of us

Nicola Rollock

Social class and race are not mutually exclusive

The disappearance of Abdullah Öcalan

Toby Green

Imprisoned for a quarter-century, the Kurdish leader has been all but forgotten

The silent struggle

Tomiwa Owolade

Disadvantages in education can be more nuanced than just race and gender

VIEW ALL

PEOPLE

VIEW ALL

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

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

Benny Higgins

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

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

Daniel Howell

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

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

DBC Pierre

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

Andrew Roberts

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

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

Dan Snow

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

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

Lynn Barber

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

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

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

Rosie Holt

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

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

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

Vince Cable

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

Katy Brand

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

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE – Q&As

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

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

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

Tom Curry

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

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

Zandra Rhodes

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

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

Ed Balls

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

Craig Brown

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

Andrew Roberts

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

Rosie Holt

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

Rosie Boycott

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

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

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 Vaizey

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

Wynne Evans

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

VIEW ALL

CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Author Interview - Front Page The author Interview

by

Helen Brown

“Most people, most of the time, are if not collaborators then co-operators with the ruling regime”

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

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

FEATURES

Acts of sedition

Pauline F Kiernan

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

Hymn to Hestia

Natalie Haynes

The forgotten goddess of the hearth

Zealots not harlots

Elizabeth Sharkey

How Quaker dissenters became England’s first feminists

FILM

Poverty porn

Anne Billson

STYLE

Give cardis the slip

Christobel Kent

POETRY

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

Blood Moon by Gillian Clarke

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

There's a Walrus on My Windscreen by Ian Humphreys

ART

Glances with wolves

Peter Phelps

MUSIC

Get Back

Laura Barton

CULTURE

Author Interview - Front Page The author Interview

by

Helen Brown

“The current generation don’t seem to be using their power for much more than shooting penis-shaped rockets into outer space”

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

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

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