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Bankrupt Britain needs to tap into North Sea oil gold, says Donald Trump

The US president declared himself ‘very impressed’ with the Prime Minister, who indicated he was open to future drilling Donald Trump has said he thinks he and Andy Burnham are…

Plans for staged re-opening of wildfire cordons being finalised

Broadcaster John Humphrys remembers ‘one of a kind’ journalist Rod Liddle

Para-athlete had to keep ’emotions at bay’ after first gold medal overturned

Ed Sheeran-backed cross-border music project takes centre stage at Fleadh

Fact check: Number 10 North and football tickets on the NHS?

Trump accuses Iran of being ‘unbelievably duplicitous’ over peace talks denial

Lynda La Plante fears writing career over as she is handed six-month driving ban

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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

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.…

Monique Roffey

Only connect

Last month I went to Susheila Nasta’s 70th birthday party in Greenwich, south-east London. I’d…

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

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

Sam Fowles

Unfree speech

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

Nathaniel Tapley

Bonkers bunkers

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

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COMMENT

Sonia Sodha

The road to recovery

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

Simon Heffer

Correcting our Grammar mistake

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

Peter Lawlor

Rent in two

In this class-themed issue I want to touch on an important social distinction in the…

Sam Fowles

Might is not right

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

Michael Janofsky

Defensive positions

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

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Perspectives

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Free as a bird

Keggie Carew

A meditation on our complex relationship with wildness

Fantastic fungi

Nick Hunt

Why we should lose our fear of the ancient art of foraging

Baby Doomers

Róisín Lanigan

Falling birth rates are a sign of existential angst

All my friends are having Botox now

Róisín Lanigan

Perspectives

All that jazz

Lucy Moore

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

Virtual appetites

Sanjana Modha

Hits from a fusion food influencer

Cough cough

Jennifer Traig

Too broke to multiply

Róisín Lanigan

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PEOPLE

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TCE The Interview The Interview - Front Page

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Sam Fowles

Shami Chakrabarti

Lawyer and human rights activist Shami Chakrabarti defends the ECHR and discusses how notions of liberty are inverted to justify oppression

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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Terence Blacker

Chuck Berry

The revolutionary musician who single-handedly transformed rock 'n' roll

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

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

Lynn Barber

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

Daniel Howell

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

Robert Peston

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

Andrew Roberts

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

DBC Pierre

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

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

Joanna Lumley

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

Rosie Holt

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

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

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

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

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

Tom Curry

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

Katy Brand

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

Vince Cable

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

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

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE – Q&As

Katy Brand

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

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

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

Rosie Holt

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

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

Sally Phillips

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

Andrew Roberts

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

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

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

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

Ed Balls

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

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

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

Dan Snow

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

Lynn Barber

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

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

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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

Francesca Beauman

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

Cathy Newman

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

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

The politics of colour

Tina Gharavi

Tina Gharavi’s full response to the controversy surrounding Queen Cleopatra, a Netflix series about the identity of the legendary last pharaoh

Hymn to Hestia

Natalie Haynes

The forgotten goddess of the hearth

There’s always whisky

Miranda Seymour

Jean Rhys, literary genius and troubled alcoholic

FILM

Primetime Potus

Anne Billson

STYLE

Dressing for utopia

Christobel Kent

POETRY

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

Hermeneutics by Rebecca Hurst

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

Blood Moon by Gillian Clarke

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

ART

Glances with wolves

Peter Phelps

MUSIC

Man-made girl bands

Lily Webb

CULTURE

Author Interview - Front Page The author Interview

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Helen Brown

“The current generation don’t seem to be using their power for much more than shooting penis-shaped rockets into outer space”

Naomi Alderman

The novelist, gamer and Bailey Women’s Prize winner discusses tech billionaires, apocalypse bunkers, her fans Obama and Gates, and her new book The Future

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

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

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