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MSPs back John Swinney’s independence motion but Westminster rejects referendum

The Scottish Parliament has voted for Westminster to transfer powers to Holyrood to allow a second independence referendum to be held. John Swinney is to press the Prime Minister for…

Parents told Government to announce online safety plan in ‘weeks, not months’

Fresh bid to end hunting with dogs in Northern Ireland is ‘balanced’, MLA says

Starmer insists ‘questions to be answered’ for the SNP over Peter Murrell case

UK Government has ‘failed’ Northern Ireland in terms of funding – O’Neill

Weather warning as temperatures surpass May record

Hottest May day record broken again as temperatures reach 35C

King has ‘instant bond’ with cancer patients during visit to new hospital centre

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COMMENT

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Sonia Sodha

The road to recovery

First in 1945, then 1997 and now 2024. The three times in history that a Labour government has been elected on a sweeping majority, crushing the Conservative incumbents. What Keir Starmer…

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…

Nathaniel Tapley

Bonkers bunkers

In December 2023 Ron Hubbard, a security consultant from Texas (not to be confused with…

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…

Wade Graham

The new nomadism

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

Lucy Moore

All that jazz

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

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COMMENT

Sonia Sodha

Breaking the class ceiling

Aspiration and social mobility were at the heart of Tony…

Simon Heffer

New protest laws would be extreme

Having been bored into a stupor by a supposedly Conservative…

Sally Hayden

War reporter

Cambridge In early September I attended the British Red Cross summer school in international humanitarian…

Sam Fowles

Might is not right

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

Wade Graham

The rewilding Republican

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

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Perspectives

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Free as a bird

Keggie Carew

A meditation on our complex relationship with wildness

The canary in my coalmine

Paul Moss

Close encounters of a conspiratorial kind

Know thy past

Gillian Mosely

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

Living on cloud wine

Nick Cohen

Our society's cavalier attitude towards alcoholism

Perspectives

All that jazz

Lucy Moore

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

Caste list

Anjana Menon

From Modi to cricket to young influencers, caste is no longer a barrier to the top in India

My generation’s missing out on the naughties

Róisín Lanigan

Know thy past

Gillian Mosely

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

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PEOPLE

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The Interview The Interview - Front Page

BY

Lipika Pelham

Zahra Joya

The journalist who was airlifted from Afghanistan discusses dressing as a boy to go to school, running Rukhshana Media from her London bedroom and the women the world has forgotten

In Conversation In Conversation - Front Page

BY

Rowan Pelling

Lysette Anthony

The actress speaks about the repercussions of outing Harvey Weinstein for repeatedly assaulting her as a young woman

Reputations Reputations - Front Page

BY

Andrew Lownie

The Duke of Windsor

How he actively engaged with Nazi Germany during World War II

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

Jeremy Paxman

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

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

Daniel Howell

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

Sally Phillips

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

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

Vince Cable

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

Robert Peston

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

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

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

Rosie Boycott

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

Benny Higgins

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

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

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

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

Wynne Evans

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

Craig Brown

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

Michael Holding

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

Joanna Lumley

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

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE – Q&As

Tom Curry

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

Rosie Boycott

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

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

Rosie Holt

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

Vince Cable

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

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

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

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

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

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

Craig Brown

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

Katy Brand

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

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

Joanna Lumley

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

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

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

Daniel Howell

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

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

Michael Holding

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

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CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Author Interview - Front Page The author Interview

by

Helen Brown

This is a book that faces the awful possibility of a wind’s death amid climate collapse

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

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

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

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

Zealots not harlots

Elizabeth Sharkey

How Quaker dissenters became England’s first feminists

FILM

Primetime Potus

Anne Billson

STYLE

Tribal fashion

Christobel Kent

POETRY

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

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

ART

The herstory of art

Max Lunn

MUSIC

Sucking the marrow out of life

Laura Barton

CULTURE

The author Interview

by

Helen Brown

“All I had ever wanted to do was write a novel. When I held the first copy, aged 42, I cried”

Emma Flint

The crime novelist on her book Other Women, the pathologist's memoir she bought aged twelve at Heathrow and twenty years of writing instruction manuals before her first novel

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