How to Fix a Nation

A conspiracy of silence

Both Labour and the Conservatives are being disingenuous on spending. They must reckon with the choices facing the country.

Letter of the week: Immigration checkpoints

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

Tories are canvassing strenuously – for the Conservative leadership election

Your weekly dose of gossip from the campaign trail.

The Labour Party has a Gen Z problem

Young voters are demanding a new radicalism from politics.

The pain of writing a very personal memoir

Also this week: All change at the Evening Standard, and Rishi Sunak’s karaoke song.

Sarah Sackman: “My Labour values and my Jewish identity were in tension”

The candidate for Finchley and Golders Green reflects on the Corbyn era and how the party has changed since.

Republicans claim to be pro-worker. Let them prove it

As the GOP descends on Milwaukee for its national convention, will delegates show solidarity with beleaguered hospitality staff?

The plain-speaking appeal of Nigel Farage

Voters are turning to the Reform leader because he tells a story that chimes with their lives.

Eight things I’ve learned about Ed Davey

The Liberal Democrat leader is a politician with great ambitions. He is also my brother-in-law…

Britain’s prisons are at breaking point

Labour must address the overcrowding crisis, however unpalatable the solutions.

The real Christopher Isherwood

The poet’s candid project of self-discovery prefigured autofiction and shaped a generation of writers.

The NS Poem: On Rachmaninoff’s Birthday

A new poem by Tim Liardet.

From Kathleen Jamie to Richard Overy: new books reviewed in short

Also featuring Ronald Moody: Sculpting Life by Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski and The Cursed Friend by Elena Pala.

The politics of the prehistoric past

Our understanding of the earliest humans is shaped by contemporary beliefs about race, violence and sex.

A reckoning for the Parisian elite

The French capital, once a seat of global power, has entered a new era of political and cultural upheaval.

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition: decorous, polite, all too safe

The artists at this year’s inoffensive show have very little to say.

Inside Out 2 can’t live up to the triumphant original

The first film was funny, touching and universally relatable. The sequel is unwieldy and narrow.

The Stormtrooper Scandal: a parable for our times

The BBC’s cautionary tale of greed and lies in the art world is full of bullshitters and rank opportunists.

Browsing royal bookshelves with The Queen’s Reading Room

This podcast is confusing: there often isn’t is a link between the book Queen Camilla graciously highlights and the…

Inside Blur’s reunion psychodrama

A new film documents the band’s cautious reconciliation at Damon Albarn’s very big house in the country.

I couldn’t beat our local fly-tippers. Instead, I found myself joining them

Often I find myself picking among jettisoned debris, looking for incriminating documents, but rarely with any luck.

It’s time for elderly millionaires to taste austerity

For higher earners, retirement contributions are fantastic value, mostly thanks to the munificence of the state.

The cheering sounds of childhood

Innocent, childlike play is one of the great delights of life. We should try to keep in touch with…

Hero worship has become yet another source of anxiety

We long for our artists and leaders to be real people – and then we punish them for it.

This England: Prize barrow

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

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Jonathan Dimbleby Q&A: “I’d run my estate as Tolstoy ran Yasnaya Polyana”

The broadcaster and author on running a 19th-century household, Mikhail Gorbachev, and identity politics.