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…

Sarah Hall

Natural hazards

The first novel that truly affected me as a young reader was eschatological in nature.…

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…

Peter Phelps

Time for a class act

January is San Francisco’s coldest and wettest month, and generally its quietest. That wasn’t the…

Michael Janofsky

America’s third man

With all the focus on Joe Biden-Donald Trump redux, it’s easy to ignore more than…

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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 road to recovery

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

Simon Heffer

Reading the room

Here’s a paradox for you: Britain is a conservative country…

Sam Fowles

Unfree speech

Free speech is “under threat”, or so we are continually told. Under threat from whom?…

Keiran Goddard

Falling better

The only thing slower than writing books, it seems, is publishing them. The mechanisms of…

Peter Lawlor

Question time

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

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Perspectives

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The end of days

Boris Starling

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

Lessons from History

Perspective Media

We asked some of our favourite historians and writers what key insights they have gained from studying the past

Baby Doomers

Róisín Lanigan

Falling birth rates are a sign of existential angst

Don’t look now

Susie Alegre

We’re being monitored at home, at work and on our streets

Perspectives

The end of days

Boris Starling

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

Nuanced thinking

Lily Webb

Consent is the basis of intimacy, not a barrier to it

Too low for zero

Khaled Bazzi

We need to talk about testosterone deficiency, a debilitating syndrome that affects millions of men

Toxic in the extreme

Anjana Menon

India’s women still face a widespread culture of lethal misogyny

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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

Dominic Cummings

The Brexit strategist on a start-up party he's drafting, Brexit, the covid inquiry, Whitehall and other shit-shows

Reputations Reputations - Front Page

BY

Simon Heffer

Chips Channon

Brilliance blighted by poor judgment

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

Dan Snow

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

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

Robert Peston

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

Benny Higgins

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

Rosie Boycott

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

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

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

Andrew Roberts

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

Sally Phillips

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

Rosie Holt

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

Daniel Howell

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

Zandra Rhodes

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

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

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

Michael Holding

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

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

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

Ed Balls

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

Ed Vaizey

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

Sally Phillips

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

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

Dan Snow

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

Rosie Holt

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

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

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

Robert Peston

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

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

Daniel Howell

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

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

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

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

Katy Brand

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

Wynne Evans

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

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

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CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Author Interview - Front Page The author Interview

by

Helen Brown

“The vitriol online can really knock your confidence”

Cathy Newman

Channel 4’s first female news anchor discusses trailblazing women, internet trolls, sexual assault and her book The Ladder

Francesca Beauman

The Persephone Books publisher discusses forgotten gems written by women and the imprint’s 150th book

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

FEATURES

Zealots not harlots

Elizabeth Sharkey

How Quaker dissenters became England’s first feminists

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

Poverty porn

Anne Billson

STYLE

Girls will be boys

Christobel Kent

POETRY

Blood Moon by Gillian Clarke

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

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

Hermeneutics by Rebecca Hurst

ART

The art of perturbation

Rachel Campbell Johnston

MUSIC

Man-made girl bands

Lily Webb

CULTURE

Book Book Review

by

Helen Brown

Lisa Taddeo

The novelist on her blood-soaked debut Animal, why the world divides into those who have suffered and those who deny it, female rage and reporting back from the depths

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

Bee Wilson

The food writer, journalist, author and charity campaigner for TastEd discusses festive family rituals, celebrating Christmas as a newly single parent and her first recipe book

FEATURES