Christina Patterson is a writer and columnist at the Independent. She writes in the comment pages about politics and society, and, elsewhere, about culture and the arts. She has interviewed writers and artists ranging from Martin Amis to Philip Glass and Werner Herzog, and did the first interview after he left office with Gordon Brown. A former director of the Poetry Society, and literary programmer at the Southbank Centre, she has written for the Observer, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, Time, the Spectator and the New Statesman. She’s a regular commentator on radio and TV news programmes, a regular reviewer on the Sky News press preview, and a regular guest on cultural programmes including The Review Show. She has also campaigned to improve standards in nursing in a series of articles in the Independent, by speaking at conferences, and in programmes she has made about nursing for radio and TV.