Leader: Britain’s New Europeans
For decades, Britain was a country defined by its disdain for the European Union rather than its enthusiasm. Its…
ByNew Statesman Magazine
In this week’s magazine
Guilty
It’s a cliché to say that politics is “beyond satire”, but Brexit really has killed comedy
“What the hell,” I asked my husband at the weekend, “is that awful noise coming out of your phone?”…
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Editor’s Note: The masochism premiership, our national novelist and Tintin in Bishop’s Stortford
When I interviewed Theresa May at Downing Street one morning in February 2017, she was personally cold but confident…
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Kirsty Wark’s Diary: Wise words from Baron Elder, an all-female Newsnight and taking my dog on a steam boat
There’s nothing quite so exhilarating as a breaking political story just as Newsnight goes on air. Although “Brexit” and…
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Why politicians and journalists should ban themselves from using Twitter
Should everyone be allowed to tweet? Some argue that Twitter is a platform for free speech or it is…
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Desperate Tory MPs are wrong to think ousting Theresa May will solve their Brexit problems
When David Cameron was prime minister, political journalists would often call Conservative MPs to find out what the mood…
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Commons Confidential: Leadsom for leader — the sequel
Ministers are resigning faster than Theresa May can replace them but one Tory is desperate for a job from…
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Shamima Begum’s lawyer: “What Javid has done is morally appalling and flawed legally”
I met Tasnime Akunjee for the first time in autumn last year. I was interested in the case of…
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A new global recession is getting closer — and the world is woefully unprepared
On 22 March, the biggest news in the financial world was the inversion of the US yield curve. By…
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David Lidington — the quiet rise of “Mr Europe”
When John Major made his first set of government appointments from the 1992 intake of Conservative MPs, there were…
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The Mueller investigation didn’t end in a dramatic comeuppance for Trump – but then it was never going to
For some, this was meant to be Donald Trump’s Götterdämmerung. Through nearly two years of meticulously secretive investigation, special…
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Here’s looking at you – how China built its Great Firewall
During Mao Zedong’s rule, you could be detained for discussing your cat (as the academic Perry Link once noted,…
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Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet takes a dark turn in Spring
Spring is the third instalment of Ali Smith’s Brexit-inflected “seasonal quartet”. The first, Autumn, appeared in October 2016, a…
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A Robot Invents the Orphic Puddle
After the shovels of precipitation had doused the heat that broke the gauge the rainstorm relinquishes all but its…
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Listening in on real couples’ therapy sessions
The Belgian psychotherapist Esther Perel has been working with couples for more than 30 years. Her podcast, Where Should We Begin?…
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Jafar Panahi’s 3 Faces expands far beyond its initial mystery
The 20-year film-making ban imposed on Jafar Panahi in 2010 by the Iranian regime, incorporating six years under house…
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The utopian dreams of 1960s architecture
In the 1960s we were promised jet-packs. The chief planner of Leicester suggested the city should have an underground,…
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The madness of King Henry VI
The mental illness of monarchs has been a fruitful subject for historians, but in Henry VI’s case his illness…
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As I said to Moses, Ole is the Messiah, the saviour – we are all looking for a Redeemer in football
We had a good chat about Ole, me and Moses, my window cleaner. Every time he comes, and is…
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How the Home Office refused a dying woman’s wish
Practising in a semi-rural location in the south-west of England I have few jet-setting patients, but Nell is one…
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Becoming homeless happens in stages. Patience wears thin, and pride gets in the way
In search of light reading, I go to the room in the Big House set aside for the holidaymakers who…
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Whether it’s a trashy true-crime mag or a smart murder box-set, the morbid impulse is the same
Knickers were twisted this month when a “new true crime mag” (those are the words on the cover) was…
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In churches I find an array of wildlife: from carvings of beavers, stags and herons to medieval Green Men myths
The village of Woolpit (an Old English word for wolf-trapping pits) could stake a good claim to being the…
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BBC Four’s Yorkshire Ripper Files are extraordinarily resonant
Liza Williams’s three-part documentary series The Yorkshire Ripper Files (26 March, 9pm) sets out to examine whether the notoriously…
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Ben Elton Q&A: “The F-word is all very well, but it’s very little use as a comma“
Born in 1959, Ben Elton began his career as a stand-up comic, where he was associated with the left-wing…
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