Britain isn’t working

Leader: A conspiracy of silence over Brexit

The Tories boast that Brexit is done, but only now are the consequences of No 10’s “oven-ready deal” becoming…

Letters of the week: Dark heart of government

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

Shadow ministers rail against Starmer’s picket-line ban

Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.

The betrayal of Hong Kong

Twenty-five years since the city passed from British to Chinese rule, its once-vibrant civil society has been crushed.

Lawrence Freedman’s Diary: My ban from entering Russia and memories of Cold War encounters with the KGB

I was last on the Kremlin’s most recent list of people to be sanctioned. This suggested I was something…

Jonathan Haidt: “America is the ghost of liberal democracies’ future”

The social psychologist believes bitter online discourse is hastening the spread of US-style recriminatory politics.

Boris Johnson will use the strikes to mount a comeback and torment the Labour Party

A wave of public sector strikes is an issue big enough to prompt the Conservatives to trigger a snap…

The fracturing of French politics spells instability – but also a chance for renewal

With Emmanuel Macron forced to negotiate on legislation, the Assemblée Nationale matters more than it has in decades.

Whatever Moscow’s military defeats in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is winning the energy war

Russia’s exports to Eurasia are so great, its resource power won’t be dented by sanctions imposed only by the…

Emma Thompson’s new film is an absurd view of what a middle-aged woman’s life is worth

In Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Nancy says that paying for sex has been her only adventure in…

The Death of Consensus: the recurring nightmares of British politics

From strikes to Brexit, a new book by the BBC producer Phil Tinline explores how the UK has been…

Bob Stanley’s pre-history of pop breathes life into a lost musical era

In Let’s Do It, the musician and journalist reveals how ragtime, jazz, blues and swing still shape today’s popular…

Geoff Dyer and the art of slacking off

The author’s workshy alter-egos made his books a delight. Now in sober late middle age, has the ultimate skiver…

Ottessa Moshfegh and the tedium of depravity

The American author’s new novel of medieval brutality aims for the Marquis de Sade but ends up closer to…

Reviewed in short: New books from Victor Sebestyen, Susan Jonusas, Howard Jacobson and Keiran Goddard

Budapest by Sebestyen, Hell’s Half Acre by Jonusas, Mother’s Boy by Jacobson and Hourglass by Goddard.

Can Emma Raducanu survive her super-brand status?

After winning the US Open aged 18, Britain’s wunderkind has suffered a loss of form – but her honesty…

Why Baz Luhrmann’s biopic fails to capture the real Elvis Presley

This conventional, sanitised version of the singer’s life is an endless highlight reel, with no room for the unsavoury…

Back in Time for Birmingham tells the story of immigration in postwar Britain

For all its banalities, the BBC’s warm-hearted recreation of the lives of previous generations of British Asians is welcome,…

How statistics mislead us

Anna Lawlor’s BBC Radio 4 show Typical! reveals how a poor grasp of means and modes skews our idea…

There is a simple, sensual pleasure in eating with your hands

Even Debrett’s stipulates that “at an informal gathering it is fine to eat a chicken wing or spare rib…

For the first time in my professional life, I am defeated by a book

I have a reputation for being welcoming of unconventional novels, but this one proved too much even for me.

This England: Hot-hoofing it

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

Please email [email protected] if you would like to be featured.

Suzie Sheehy’s Q&A: “Australia’s regressive stance on climate is embarrassing”

The physicist on why Jocelyn Bell Burnell is an inspiration and the importance of investing in your own happiness.