Interviews

“Equality has always been conditional on being a particular kind of human”: Interview with Anne Phillips

anyapearson2December 28, 2021

Anya Pearson interviews Professor Anne Phillips, one of the most distinguished political theorists of our time, after her 2021 Political Quarterly Annual Lectur...

InterviewsWelfare & Inequality8 min read

“There is a deeply entrenched assumption that England doesn’t need its own institutions or voice:” Interview with Michael Kenny

anyapearson2June 24, 2021

Anya Pearson interviews Michael Kenny, Inaugural Director of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, about winning the 2021 Ber...

DevolutionGovernmentInterviewsUK7 min read

“If we’re not out in public, then we’re not negotiating difference”: Interview with Sophie Watson

anyapearson2November 18, 2020

Sophie Watson is Professor of Sociology at the Open University. Her research tackles feminist theory, cities and the politics of public space. Her book City Pu...

CoronavirusInterviewsUKWelfare & Inequality6 min read

“We need to learn how to talk about risk and trade-offs in the coronavirus crisis”: Interview with Lawrence Freedman

anyapearson2April 29, 2020

Sir Lawrence David Freedman is Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College London. He has been described as the "dean of British strategic studies", an...

CoronavirusInternational politicsInterviews13 min read

“We really need Orwell’s spirit of fighting back”: Interview with Alpa Shah

anyapearson2January 10, 2020

Alpa Shah has always striven to understand inequality, and how to address it. When we meet at her home in North London on a damp day in Autumn, my head is full...

InterviewsWelfare & Inequality9 min read

“Fiction gets us to look at truths that politics can’t get at”: Interview with Petina Gappah

anyapearson2October 16, 2019

Anya Pearson interviews Petina Gappah, Zimbabwean novelist and lawyer, whose first book An Elegy for Easterly was shortlisted for the 2010 Orwell book pri...

InterviewsMedia & culture10 min read

“The closest you can get to the truth of what happened is a multisided account”: Interview with Norma Percy

anyapearson2October 1, 2019

Anya Pearson speaks to documentary film-maker and producer Norma Percy, who won the Special Prize for Lifetime Achievement in 2010 for the documentaries she ha...

International politicsInterviewsMedia & culture14 min read

“Recognition alone is not enough”: Interview with Jacqui Smith

anyapearson2December 11, 2018

You’ve just published a book, Honourable Ladies, profiling every woman MP between 1918–1996. It features female contributors such as Mary Beard, Caroline Lucas...

FeminismGovernmentInterviewsUK9 min read

“It honestly feels like we’re in the middle of a government cover-up”: Interview with Carole Cadwalladr

anyapearson2November 27, 2018

The Political Quarterly and the Orwell Foundation have teamed up to produce a series of exclusive interviews with female Orwell Prize winners and...

BrexitElectionsInterviewsScience & techUK10 min read

“We’ve ended up with liberty for the few, rather than for the many”: Interview with Timothy Garton Ash

anyapearson2July 16, 2018

Anya Pearson interviews Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University and Guardian columnist, after he delivered the Political Quarterl...

BrexitEconomyEuropeInterviewsUKWelfare & Inequality10 min read

“Democracy is really struggling to cope”: Interview with David Runciman

anyapearson2December 24, 2017

I caught up with David Runciman, Professor of Politics at Cambridge University, after he delivered The Political Quarterly's annual lecture 'Nobody knows anythi...

ElectionsInterviewsMedia & culture13 min read