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Security stepped up as England and Argentina fans prepare for World Cup showdown

England play Argentina in their World Cup semi-final in Atlanta on Wednesday. Police have stepped up security across Atlanta as the city prepares to host England’s World Cup semi-final against…

Spanish fire survivor fears wife and friends have died trying to walk to safety

Starmer continues farewell tour with Burnham set for No 10

Bereaved urge Covid Inquiry not to ‘pull punches’ in report on PPE procurement

Heatwave and World Cup shape spending figures for June

UK economy beat the odds because of my choices, Reeves to say

Burnham must ‘go further’ with business rates reform, says coalition

Pubs to serve more than 64 million pints of no and low alcohol beer this summer

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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…

Peter Lawlor

History’s false promises

In 2015, when interviewing Jonathan Sumption, Matt Stadlen asked a deceptively simple question: “Why does…

Peter Lawlor

Rent in two

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

Khaled Bazzi

Where hope takes root

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

Guy Shrubsole

English pastoral

Guy Shrubsole explores England’s buried tradition of land reform, where less than one percent of…

Sam Fowles

Time’s arrow

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

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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

Correcting our Grammar mistake

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

Sam Fowles

Unfree speech

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

Nathaniel Tapley

Passing as upper class

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

Keiran Goddard

Falling better

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

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Perspectives

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Free as a bird

Keggie Carew

A meditation on our complex relationship with wildness

I post therefore I am

Róisín Lanigan

Uncovering the online persona

Perspectives

The end of days

Boris Starling

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

The Place of No Return

Nick Hunt

The human-caused devastation of the Aral Sea landscape has given birth to the strangest myths

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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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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 TCE

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Ben Wilson

Pasquale Paoli

The Corsican guerilla commander who inspired the modern quest for charismatic political leaders

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE - Q&As

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

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 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

Ed Balls

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

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

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

Zandra Rhodes

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

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 Paxman

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

Lynn Barber

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

Vince Cable

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

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

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

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

Dan Snow

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

Rosie Boycott

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

Wynne Evans

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

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

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

Jeremy Paxman

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

Michael Holding

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

Ed Vaizey

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

Daniel Howell

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

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

Wasfi Kani, CBE

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

Zandra Rhodes

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

Rosie Holt

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

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

Benny Higgins

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

Joanna Lumley

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

Lynn Barber

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

Craig Brown

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

Rosie Boycott

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

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 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

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

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

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CULTURE

MORE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Author Interview - Front Page The author Interview

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Helen Brown

“Most people, most of the time, are if not collaborators then co-operators with the ruling regime”

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

Francesca Beauman

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

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

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

Gothic delights

Elizabeth Sharkey

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

There’s always whisky

Miranda Seymour

Jean Rhys, literary genius and troubled alcoholic

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

FILM

Girls will be boys

Christobel Kent

POETRY

Hermeneutics by Rebecca Hurst

There's a Walrus on My Windscreen by Ian Humphreys

Tight Little Island by Rishi Dastidar

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

I Am Waiting For You by Risalet Merdan

ART

Prisoner with a key

Laura Barton

CULTURE

The author Interview

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Helen Brown

“For too long, women writing literary fiction – especially the funny kind – were not being taken seriously”

Amanda Craig

The state-of-the-nation novelist on her book The Three Graces, why she's fed up with women becoming invisible and a mother who travelled from the Guardian to the Daily Mail

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