Leader: Searching for new ideas
Faced with a profound economic and social crisis, Westminster politics appears devoid of solutions.
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
Putin vs Nato
Letter of the week: Starmer’s social solidarity
Write to [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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Farewell to the iPod – and the age of the personal music library
The iPod, with its “shuffle” feature, was often accused of pushing listeners away from the album. Now it feels…
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Margaret Hodge’s Diary: Keir Starmer’s honourable announcement and why I’m a proud granny
The Labour leader has demonstrated integrity, which is so different from the slippery lying that defines Boris Johnson.
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George Monbiot: “Agriculture is arguably the most destructive industry on Earth”
The campaigner and author on why we must break the stranglehold of traditional farmers to prevent environmental catastrophe.
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The Palace of Westminster is falling down, just like our political system
We are close to a real chance for reform. It is being caused not by pamphlets or seminars, but…
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Andrew Bailey’s apocalypse
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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Boris Johnson’s government is morally and intellectually bankrupt
The only strategy the Prime Minister has left is to stoke division and stir up the Tory base against…
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North Korea has finally been hit by Covid, and it’s not prepared
The country is believed to be completely unvaccinated, and many of its hospitals lack basic medicines, let alone ventilators.
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What the Terra crash means for the future of crypto
The stablecoin’s spectacular implosion won’t destroy the cryptocurrency market – but it could give it a political edge.
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The second coming of Nato
The alliance has been revived – but it can’t save the West.
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Mumsnet’s founder Justine Roberts: “It is a place where women can speak the truth”
The parenting forum has become a powerful political force, and has been repeatedly accused of transphobia. Its CEO explains…
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Norman Scott interview: “I never loved Jeremy Thorpe, but he could be enormous fun”
The Liberal leader was tried for conspiracy to Scott’s murder in 1979 in the biggest political scandal of the…
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Where the internet went wrong – and how we can reboot it
The online world is run by tech companies that we depend on but deeply distrust. New books by Justin…
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The NS Poem: Bede’s Sparrow
A new poem by Isobel Dixon.
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What rocks teach us about the human condition
In Hugh Raffles’ profound, genre-straddling new book, stones and minerals reveal the pain of loss and the secrets of…
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Rebels Against the Raj: A morality tale for Modi’s nationalist India
A new history of the Westerners who fought with Gandhi to free India from British rule has lessons for…
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Reviewed in short: New books from Graham Caveney, Giles Tremlett, Charlotte Van den Broeck and Chitra Ramaswamy
On Agoraphobia by Caveney, España: A Brief History of Spain by Tremlett, Bold Ventures by Van den Broeck and…
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How Sergei Magnitsky paid with his life for exposing Vladimir Putin’s financial corruption
A new book by Bill Browder reveals the bravery of a young lawyer who uncovered a £185m state-sponsored tax…
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The sweaty, glorious return of Eurovision
In Turin, hardcore fans and locals banish two long, difficult years with a Euro-pop soundtrack.
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The Brazilian landscapes of Frans Post capture the dismal dawn of the colonial age
The 17th-century Dutch artist was the first professional painter to record the New World – and the view was…
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Terence Davies’s Benediction is a perfect portrait of an outsider
In this new biopic of the wartime poet Siegfried Sassoon, Davies beautifully renders, in quasi-autobiography, a life unredeemed.
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The Victorians in The Essex Serpent are as far-fetched as the sea-monster
Tom Hiddleston and Claire Danes struggle to convince in the TV adaptation of Sarah Perry’s gothic novel.
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Radio 4’s Red Lines is a heavy-handed attempt to pin today’s crisis in Ukraine on squeamish MPs in 2013
The message is unsubtle and simplistic, and the only moment of wit is when David Davis is called a…
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Why we must fight the threat of a “silent spring”
My sleepless hours are filled by birdsong, but it’s a solace that may soon be lost.
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This England: Quack thinking
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
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With little left to be proud of in this country, at least we still have county cricket
A cricket ground bathed in sunlight is a wonderful sight; I would have been happy with any result.
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Reading to my son, I realise you can get away with murder in children’s books
Moralising hasn’t disappeared from children’s literature, but the content of the message has subtly changed.
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Christer Sturmark Q&A: “Being in love is a kind of existential happiness”
The Swedish author, innovator and publisher on the secret to succeeding in IT and his love of David Bowie.
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