A train line to nowhere
Rishi Sunak’s announcement that the northern leg of HS2 is to be cancelled combines farce with tragedy.
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
Labour in Power
Letter of the week: Category errors
Write to [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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The Conservative conference can’t take its eyes off Farage
Your dose of gossip from the Manchester Central Convention Complex.
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The Tories are driving themselves to distraction
A commitment to the car is a commitment to economic precarity.
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My dinner with Putin
Also this week: party conference dress codes and a troubled peace in the Balkans.
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Sharon Graham: “Labour is too cautious. It has been immobilised”
The general secretary of Unite reflects on a new era for workers.
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Rishi Sunak is demolishing the centre he once embodied
The Prime Minister has signalled that technocratic pragmatism has had its day. This is the return of politics.
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The EU’s great power delusions
Predictions that the invasion of Ukraine will breathe new life into enlargement are based on wishful thinking.
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Why Sam Bankman-Fried’s deluded world-view matters
His utilitarianism reflects the culture of Silicon Valley, which wields great power over how we relate to one another.
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Among the believers
Labour gathers in Liverpool as a government-in-waiting. But can Keir Starmer negotiate the traps being set for him?
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What if China invaded Taiwan?
Keir Starmer has said little about his approach to foreign policy. But if he wins the next election, his…
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The challenges and threats for Labour in the world to come
A patriotic and outward-looking Starmer government could rebuild Britain’s alliances and international standing.
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Justin Welby: “It’s better to be woke than asleep”
The Tories decry his interventions; others say he’s too conservative. Can the Archbishop of Canterbury unite a fraying Church?
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The return of the two Germanys
The country is in economic and political crisis and parties of the extreme left and right are rising again.
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Anne Boleyn’s blunders
A new history shows how the clever, ambitious queen was no match for the post-truth politics of Henry VIII’s…
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Ian Fleming, eternal adolescent
Nicholas Shakespeare’s biography reveals a boy more reminiscent of Peter Rabbit than James Bond.
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Trapped in the AI echo chamber
Mustafa Suleyman and his fellow artificial intelligence cheerleaders now say their inventions could destroy us. Should we believe them?
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Myths of the miners’ strike
An oral history of the bitter Eighties dispute reveals a conflict that went far deeper than just government vs…
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The absurdity of Lessons in Chemistry
The overnight success of Bonnie Garmus’s debut novel is almost as improbable as its contrived plot.
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From Gordon Brown to Natalie Haynes: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Family Meal by Bryan Washington and Pure Wit by Francesca Peacock.
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To turn or not to turn?
In his new book, the former New Statesman political editor identifies the defining moments when Britain changed.
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Lydia Davis’s war on Amazon
The short-story writer on why the tech giant’s profit-seeking is corrupting culture.
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Why make a film about the BlackBerry?
In Matt Johnson’s film about the vanished electronic device, we all know what’s to come: the iPhone.
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BBC’s Boiling Point knows the terror of the kitchen
This sequel to the Stephen Graham movie, a cooking ur-text, is tense and highly theatrical.
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Cleo Watson reveals the dark arts of electioneering
In How to Win a Campaign, the former Boris Johnson aide gathers wisdom from Dominic Cummings and other political…
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Scientists of the 17th century would recognise my ailment – air ache
When a season changes I feel something halfway between yearning for memory and a premonition of oncoming.
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Cat-sitting has messed with my mind
Despite the animal treating me with disdain I decided to suck up the contempt and commit myself to the…
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This England: Gargoyle wars
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
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Max Bennett’s Q&A: “When we follow advice, we adopt the wants of others”
The AI entrepreneur on Jim Carrey, Game of Thrones and his disdain for self-congratulatory LinkedIn posts.
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