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Russia runs risk of ‘miscalculation’, UK warns after aircraft carrier incident

A Russian plane repeatedly flew over the Royal Navy’s HMS Prince of Wales in the Norwegian Sea. Russia’s “reckless” actions run the risk of triggering an escalation in tensions with…

‘A dream come true’: Irish-Cape Verdean Pico Lopes welcomed back from World Cup

Starmer stepped in to stop Fifa moving England kick-off

Deadly squirrelpox confirmed in Scottish red squirrels

Third heatwave of the year imminent but not a record-breaker, says Met Office

Probe into care of man arrested after boy hurt in crocodile enclosure

Sky warns some roles will be cut after £1.6bn takeover of ITV broadcasting arm

Heavy metal: King rides British Army tank in visit to regiment

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COMMENT

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Sonia Sodha

Breaking the class ceiling

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

Correcting our Grammar mistake

During the Blair years, when recalcitrant Conservatives longed for a pledge to open new grammar schools, no class warrior threw himself into the battle against selective education with such ferocity…

Mic Wright

Past futures

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

Sam Fowles

Time’s arrow

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

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

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

Peter Phelps

Time for a class act

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

Peter Phelps

Hopeful histories

“No news is good news”, the saying goes, but the reverse is also true. Good…

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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

Correcting our Grammar mistake

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

Sam Fowles

Might is not right

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

Kate Devlin

You’re on camera

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

Michael Janofsky

Long division

Our good friend Kalyan, a gay Indian-American, was so distraught by rising discrimination against Blacks,…

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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

A ban on thinking

Mic Wright

Even contemplating protest now risks arrest

Caste list

Anjana Menon

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

A calamity of lost youth

Toby Green

High numbers of deaths among young people are being ignored by the media and politicians

Perspectives

The end of days

Boris Starling

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

My generation’s missing out on the naughties

Róisín Lanigan

Reviled swimmers

Claudia Cockerell

Restricted access to clean waters leads to legal action

The emblem of excess

Christobel Kent

Fashion is the essence of capitalism

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PEOPLE

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TCE The Interview The Interview - Front Page

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Gavin Esler

Sathnam Sanghera

The British writer who says our multicultural empire led to a multicultural society

In Conversation In Conversation - Front Page TCE

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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

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Andrew Lownie

Earl Mountbatten

Re-evaluating the legacy of one of the last century’s most controversial leaders

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

Dan Snow

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

Zandra Rhodes

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

Michael Holding

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

Katy Brand

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

Robert Peston

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

Rosie Boycott

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

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

Daniel Howell

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

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

Ed Balls

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

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

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

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

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

Rosie Holt

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

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

Ed Balls

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

Dan Snow

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

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

Andrew Roberts

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

Lynn Barber

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

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

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

Benny Higgins

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

Michael Holding

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

Katy Brand

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

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

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

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

Tom Curry

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

Vince Cable

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

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

Rosie Holt

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

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 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

Cathy Newman

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

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

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

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

Zealots not harlots

Elizabeth Sharkey

How Quaker dissenters became England’s first feminists

FILM

Apocalypse now and then

Anne Billson

STYLE

Anything goes

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

Get Back

Laura Barton

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

Francesca Beauman

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

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