All-out war

Labour’s route to recovery

Public confidence is falling quickly. The party must do far more to win it back.

Letter of the week: Growth mindset

Write to [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.

Starmer wisely resists going to watch Arsenal vs Man City

Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.

The many-faceted influence of Sahra Wagenknecht

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created a particular niche that the left-wing politician is filling with apparent ease.

Linguistic soup in Trieste

Also this week: my mother’s malapropisms and the Pig Man of Pinner.

Georgia Gould on a new generation of Labour MPs

The new member for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale brings years of local-government experience to Westminster.

Starmer the grave

The Prime Minister’s grim speech was short on sunlit uplands, but its promise was serious.

Why JD Vance is toxic to ordinary Americans

The obsessions of the extremely online right do not correspond with the concerns of most voters.

What’s driving the anti-Sue Gray offensive?

Plus: Britain’s guilty libel laws and Boris Johnson at the Telegraph.

Machine politics in the age of Starmer

The Prime Minister’s image as a pragmatist belies the ideological reality of his administration.

Celebrity book clubs are bad for literature

The novel becoming a cultural accessory means to look like a reader, not be one.

The fraught history of Christianity and sex

Diarmaid MacCulloch shows how for centuries the Church has tried to resolve the tension between sacred and profane.

Burning Planet takes an alien’s-eye view of humanity

Sunil Amrith’s panoptic history shows how our pursuit of freedom has brought ruin to the Earth.

The haunted wood of children’s literature

Britain’s beloved childhood books are realms of conflict and pain as much as nostalgia and delight.

From Carol Woolton to Sonia Purnell: new books reviewed in short

Also featuring Red Threads by Henry Bell and The Story of Nature by Jeremy Mynott.

Sally Rooney: “We’re trapped in a cultural moment”

The author of Intermezzo talks to Fintan O’Toole about living with patriarchy, writing good sex, and the post-religious world.

Francis Ford Coppola’s new film may be his greatest delusion

The script of Megalopolis is unspeakable, its tone baffling and its world makes no sense.

Apples Never Fall is as sexy as a glass of barley water

Annette Bening and Sam Neill star in an American tennis soap that misses every shot.

Chappell Roan’s war on fandom

Like her peer Charli XCX, the pop star of the moment wants to free artists from a “creepy” culture…

Even the most dedicated gardeners go through times of growing apathy

It’s taboo to say, but I’ve felt a disconnect from the thing I pour hours of labour into.

Arsenal Women must regret letting go of their star player

The news that Vivianne Miedema was let go on a free transfer to Man City was met with incredulity…

In an effort to see off the bailiffs, I am open to article suggestions

A reader’s letter about me reviewing Waitrose wine is amusing, but I wonder if he is being a little…

I’m back on my bike – and I have plenty to say to my fellow road users

Cycling without headphones has made it clear how not under-my-breath my under-my-breath commentary really is.

This England: Fur evaders

This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…

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Mensun Bound Q&A: “We’re flying blind, all fuses lit”

The marine archaeologist on Second World War naval battles and his dreams of square-riggers.