The Tories’ death spiral
Rishi Sunak has failed to provide his party with the coherent leadership it needs.
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
Doom Scroll
Letter of the week: The atrophy of office
Write to [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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Tory plotters thicken as Sunak clings on
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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How the student Gaza protests went global
Pro-Palestine protests are proliferating across Western universities – but only the US has responded with military-grade police violence.
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Labour is yet to win over the north
Also this week: red-on-red mayor wars, lessons from the locals, and Michael Gove’s hanging baskets.
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Teresa Thornhill: “The system keeps some children safe, but fails others”
The former child protection lawyer on how overstretched social services endanger families.
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What Keir Starmer can learn from John Smith
Labour must beware of complacency, and the voters of Middle England.
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Whatever happened to the language of peace?
Pope Francis is the only world leader who seems prepared to denounce war.
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How the SNP lost itself in hyper-liberalism
Scotland’s hegemonic progressive regime was a chimera. Labour should take note.
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Spain’s toxic politics
The country’s poisonous relationship between law and politics is a headache for the EU.
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Demonising white women is not feminist
Casual misogyny is flooding the mainstream under the guise of anti-racism.
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The Tory doomscroll
Dismayed by the local elections, Conservatives fear the party faces not only electoral defeat but a crisis of identity.
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Hilary Cass: “Do I regret doing it? Absolutely not”
The Cass Review author on facing her critics, and how children’s gender identity services failed to “pause for thought”.
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In search of the green and pleasant land
The English revere the natural world – so why do we allow its destruction?
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What the Greeks teach us about suicide
The great tragedians’ writings on suffering, stigma and survival can help guide our own struggles with assisted dying.
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The NS Poem: October 2023
A new poem by John Burnside.
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From Willy Vlautin to Corinne Fowler: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring The Bullet: A Memoir by Tom Lee and Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter by Kat Hill.
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How the Corbynite left hit self-destruct
Andy Beckett’s The Searchers charts the rise and fall of Tony Benn’s heirs, but fails to confront the obstinacy…
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How to fix English cricket
This year’s Wisden almanack describes a game in desperate pursuit of both profit and purpose.
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Alba de Céspedes’s life of resistance
Informed by the novelist’s fight against Fascism in Italy, Her Side of the Story is a remarkable investigation into…
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Pet Shop Boys: “Labour could do with an infusion of idealism”
The pop duo on Keir Starmer, the royals, Marvel and the word “queer”.
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La Chimera is a charming tale of history and myth
Alice Rohrwacher’s playful, Palme d’Or-nominated film about tomb raiders summons the ghosts of Italy’s past.
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Inside the mind of Kevin Spacey
Beyond the allegations, Channel 4’s Spacey Unmasked is a brave attempt to explain the actor’s apparent self-loathing.
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On the trail of human traffickers
Radio 4’s To Catch a Scorpion takes us inside the brutal illegal immigration industry.
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The joys of a low-maintenance garden
One of the beautiful things about gardens is that they are continuously being made anew.
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This England: Shell-ebrating crustaceans
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
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Data can lead us to the truth or, as Rishi Sunak prefers, distort it
The Prime Minister’s cynical attack on “sick-note culture” was a missed chance to investigate the rise in long-term illness.
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I have a gift for hangovers and doing an impression of a helicopter
It’s amazing what you can find out about yourself after three dinner parties in a week.
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Our US road trip seemed cursed. Then we met the flatfoot dancers
With fog and rain ruining the mountain scenery, we desperately needed something to look forward to.
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Sarah Perry Q&A: “When was I happiest? When I left the church I was raised in”
The novelist on Rachmaninoff, the short stories of Tessa Hadley, and her lost legal career.
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