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Davey says Lib Dems ‘strong force’ as conference to firm up election platform

It comes as one of Sir Ed Davey’s MPs said the party was ‘struggling for relevance’. Sir Ed Davey has said the Liberal Democrats are a “strong force” as he…

New Scottish Labour leader to be announced

Earl Spencer doubles down on King allegations as fresh claims published

Labour ‘softening’ UK up for a ‘brutal budget’, SNP’s Dave Doogan claims

Historic document linked to Robert the Bruce to go on display for open day

Earl Spencer insists he’s telling the ‘truth’ over King allegations

Harry plays pickleball with children as controversy continues to cloud royals

Flynn challenges UK Government on ‘wholly unacceptable’ English whisky decision

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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…

Sam Fowles

Posh performance

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

Michael Janofsky

Defensive positions

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

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

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

Kate Devlin

You’re on camera

There’s a quotation by American historian Timothy Snyder currently circulating on social media. It comes…

Peter Lawlor

Question time

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

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For some of the world’s best independent writing on the stories and ideas shaping our world

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…

Nathaniel Tapley

Passing as upper class

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

Nathaniel Tapley

Bonkers bunkers

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

Mic Wright

Past futures

When we reach for past visions of the future to measure against our reality, we…

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Perspectives

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Snob value

Philip Hensher

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

Talking back to Big Brother

Laura Dodsworth

Trust is a two-way process and self-reliance is needed to counter government overreach

Covet Coventry

Lily Webb

Bleak, beautiful and built on hope

Squeezed dry

Claudia Cockerell

The water companies have drained the coffers as well as the rivers

Perspectives

All that jazz

Lucy Moore

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

Dollar fever

Frances Coppola

Competing currencies won’t unlock the world from the shackles of US financial hegemony

Freedumb, you say?

Gabrielle Bauer

Oyster grit

Claudia Cockerell

Two Cornish fishermen defy the failings of South West Water

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PEOPLE

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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

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Joanna Grochowicz

Michael Palin

The Python-turned-travel-chronicler on his new diaries, the dhow to Bombay that changed him and losing his wife Helen after 57 years

Reputations Reputations - Front Page

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Lucy Ward

Catherine the Great

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

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

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

Joanna Lumley

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

Ed Vaizey

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

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

Tom Curry

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

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

DBC Pierre

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

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

Wynne Evans

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vince Cable

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

Benny Higgins

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

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

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE – Q&As

Joanna Lumley

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

Ed Balls

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

Vince Cable

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

Daniel Howell

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

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

Wynne Evans

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

Tom Curry

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

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

Ed Vaizey

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

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

DBC Pierre

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

Benny Higgins

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

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

Sally Phillips

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

Lynn Barber

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

Katy Brand

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

Rosie Holt

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

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

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CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Author Interview - Front Page TCE The author Interview

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Helen Brown

“Mum set up the company just after her fifth child, my younger brother, left home”

Francesca Beauman

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

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

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

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

There’s always whisky

Miranda Seymour

Jean Rhys, literary genius and troubled alcoholic

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

FILM

Apocalypse now and then

Anne Billson

STYLE

Dressing for doomsday

Christobel Kent

POETRY

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

Blood Moon by Gillian Clarke

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

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

There's a Walrus on My Windscreen by Ian Humphreys

ART

Digital art merits attention

Max Lunn

MUSIC

Man-made girl bands

Lily Webb

CULTURE

Author Interview - Front Page The author Interview

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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

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

Cathy Newman

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

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