Six Months that Changed the World

Leader: In defence of the open society

A healthy liberal democracy must guarantee freedom of expression; it must not guarantee freedom from offence.

Letter of the week: Labour’s missing localism

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

Liz Truss’s aide provides some entry-level media training

Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.

Why the Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova sets an example for the West

Ovsyannikova is one of the hundreds of thousands of Russians standing up to Vladimir Putin despite immense personal risk.

Iain Dale’s Diary: My week at the Edinburgh Fringe, and a spellbinding chat with Angela Rayner

Still recovering from a bad fall, I hosted live podcast shows at the festival wearing a rather magnificent burgundy…

Mick Lynch: “Starmer’s Labour could be another version of the Tories”

The RMT general secretary on the case for strikes, the war in Ukraine and why he backed Brexit.

Keir Starmer’s energy strategy hints at Wilson-like cunning

Labour’s proposal to freeze families’ energy bills is the right policy at the right time.

What my toddler and I learned at Drag Queen Story Hour

Despite culture-war outrage, children’s events hosted by performers in drag are safe titillation for middle-class parents.

Serena Williams has been a tennis player like no other, and perhaps the greatest of all

Williams’ legacy lies not only in her extraordinary success and mesmerising on-court energy, but in the path she forged…

Why Gone with the Wind is American culture’s original sin

Sarah Churchwell’s book is a 458-page indictment of the Civil War-era romance. Frankly, should we give a damn?

How the housing crisis shaped modern Britain

The country is blighted by landlordism, homelessness and Thatcher’s legacy.

When women were warriors: the forgotten female leaders of the Middle Ages

In Femina, Janina Ramirez tells the stories of women previously written out of history books.

Mark Haddon: “I’m quite lucky to be alive”

The novelist on his triple heart bypass, literature’s “culture wars”, and why he’s donating book royalties to abortion funds…

Reviewed in short: New books from Geoff Mulgan, CJ Hauser, Matt Rowland Hill and Hans Fallada

Another World Is Possible by Mulgan, The Crane Wife by Hauser, Original Sins by Rowland Hill and Lilly and…

How Patrick Nasmyth brought Dutch mastery to Scottish art

The Edinburgh-born painter overcame physical disabilities to model himself on the landscapists of the Dutch golden age.

Jordan Peele’s Nope blends the political and the cinematic

In the award-winning director’s new sci-fi horror there are too many meanings to be absorbed in just one viewing.

Stefan Golaszewski’s Marriage is a stone-cold masterpiece

Nicola Walker and Sean Bean are both marvellous in this realistic, empathetic BBC drama portraying an ordinary, loving couple

How to sell your soul for clicks

Daisy Buchanan’s new podcast Careering examines the personal exposure demanded of women journalists.

I became a wine-lover aged ten, at my father’s side – and it connects us still

Security, for me, is the memory of a Monbazillac, tasted for the first time on that hot summer’s day…

We’re told not to have too many friends – but for me, there’s no such thing

I resent the suggestion that a wide friendship circle makes you somehow cheap or insincere.

Buying a nine-pack of loo rolls, I worry they might outlive me

Why do the doctors call it a “chest” X-ray? Surely they mean “lung”.

This England: What the butler showed

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

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Sarah Langford Q&A: “Pay something attention and it rewards you a hundredfold”

The barrister-turned-farmer on Madonna, Mad Men and why success doesn’t equal happiness.