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Badenoch pledges to bring back tax-free shopping for tourists

Scrapping the VAT refund scheme for international visitors in 2021 left the UK ‘less competitive’, the Tories said. Kemi Badenoch has pledged to bring back tax-free shopping for tourists by…

Scam fears causing one in three UK consumers to abandon online purchases – study

Runner, 90, who finished 10k in just over an hour sets ‘world best’ time for age

England and Wales look to Scotland as drought puts pressure on milk supplies

Climate impacts hitting yields and already ‘scarce’ incomes, tea farmers warn

SNP MSP seeks ‘clarity’ from King on council tax charges on royal properties

Father who had kidney transplant honours donor’s memory through football

Union demands graded Ofsted inspections halt amid fears they pose risk to life

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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…

Michael Janofsky

Fight madness with more madness

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

Mic Wright

Past futures

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

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

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

Michael Janofsky

Long division

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

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

The road to recovery

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

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…

Kate Devlin

You’re on camera

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

Sam Fowles

Posh performance

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

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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

Calorie counter

Róisín Lanigan

How arbitrary numbers altered my relationship with food

Silence of the lambs

Fred Skulthorp

The Left’s embrace of the covid consensus has badly impacted the world’s poor

Living on cloud wine

Nick Cohen

Our society's cavalier attitude towards alcoholism

Perspectives

Snob value

Philip Hensher

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

Nuanced thinking

Lily Webb

Faux fizz

Rebecca Gibb

The dishonourable history of wine fraud, from fake bubbly to bogus Bordeaux

I post therefore I am

Róisín Lanigan

Uncovering the online persona

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PEOPLE

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TCE The Interview The Interview - Front Page

BY

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

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

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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

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

Daniel Howell

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

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

DBC Pierre

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

Robert Peston

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

Dan Snow

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

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

Andrew Roberts

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

Tom Curry

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

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

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

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

Sally Phillips

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

Ed Balls

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

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

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE – Q&As

Rosie Holt

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

Craig Brown

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

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

Ed Vaizey

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

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

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

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

Joanna Lumley

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

Michael Holding

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

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

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

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

Wynne Evans

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

DBC Pierre

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

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

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

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CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Author Interview - Front Page The author Interview

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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

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

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

FEATURES

There’s always whisky

Miranda Seymour

Jean Rhys, literary genius and troubled alcoholic

Gothic delights

Elizabeth Sharkey

Exploring the history of a genre that first bewitched Elizabeth as a teenage Joy Division fan

Zealots not harlots

Elizabeth Sharkey

How Quaker dissenters became England’s first feminists

FILM

Apocalypse now and then

Anne Billson

STYLE

Dressing for utopia

Christobel Kent

POETRY

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

Hermeneutics by Rebecca Hurst

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

Blood Moon by Gillian Clarke

ART

Glances with wolves

Peter Phelps

MUSIC

Get Back

Laura Barton

CULTURE

Author Interview - Front Page TCE The author Interview

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Helen Brown

“It is a religion that asks women to have many children and really sacrifice their bodies”

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

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