Kemi Isn’t Working

Tory modernisation has failed

Kemi Badenoch is a symptom of Conservative decline rather than success.

Jeremy Hunt: the man whose fault it wasn’t

The former chancellor says the public has lost trust in politicians. However could that have happened?

GMB chief Gary Smith: “Oil and gas is not the enemy”

The trade union leader on Labour’s net zero folly and why it can’t win in Scotland.

Why junior doctors are right to strike back

Also this week: downsizing to a flat and a bumper year for fathers over 60.

The Mouses of Parliament

Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.

Letter of the week: A catastrophic war

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

Keir Starmer is no politician – but this could be his strength

This oddest of prime ministers has the hide of a rhinoceros.

The Epstein conspiracy has unmasked Trump as a faux-populist

Trump told his Maga base to look the other way. Now it’s looking at him.

Who is accountable in privatised Britain?

From unadopted housing estates to a road no one seems to own – hollowed-out local government can no longer…

The government’s government problem

Labour is full of clever people who do not seem able to get anything done.

Schools need more sex education, not less

Children must be prepared for the world as it is.

The best summer reads 2025

The essential books of the year so far, according to New Statesman staff and contributors.

Are emojis killing language?

Keith Houston’s history of the little emoticons charts how quickly technology has changed how we think and communicate.

David Gentleman’s pensées for the novice artist

His advice is not highfalutin, but at least it is straightforward.

From Xenobe Purvis to Jeffrey Wasserstrom: new books reviewed in short

Also featuring Moveable Feasts by Chris Newens and Monsieur Ozenfant’s Academy by Charles Darwent.

The Bad Guys 2 is the sequel this summer needed

DreamWorks’ animation addresses complex moral questions in exhilarating, raffish style.

Mark Gatiss’s ode to murder mysteries

In the twee world of Bookish, a new crime drama set in post war London, being well read is…

Run Sister Run is a winding descent into tragedy

Chloë Moss’s play explores addiction, codependence and time’s cruel loops in a stark, intimate staging.

One hundred and one Dalmatian wines

If the grape world has buried treasure, it lies in central and eastern Europe and the Caucasus.

My brother was taken from us. I don’t know what to do

Life will never be the same again.

I am a curse on English cricket

So, naturally, I must sacrifice myself for my country.

All roads lead to Rome? We should be so lucky

“Welcome to Britaly” sounds more like an aspiration than an omen.

This England: Stop eating your heart out

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

November 1980: The journalist and author excoriates the then leader of the opposition’s book.