Leader: The Queen held together a restive kingdom
She was intertwined with modern Britain and its self-identity. Her loss, at a time of national crisis, is disorienting.
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
Succession
Letter of the week: Labour’s power line
Write to [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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As the nation mourns, Team Truss plays up the PM’s role in proceedings
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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Sweden’s tight election could result in a far right-backed government
The Sweden Democrats are no longer treated as pariahs by mainstream conservatives despite their neo-Nazi roots.
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Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s Diary: Life without a smartphone, the Queen’s Scouse accent, and our need for etiquette
In Ireland, if someone dies you say: “Sorry for your loss.” Here it seems people are not sure how…
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Tsitsi Dangarembga: “People started pointing fingers at me, saying ‘She’s a Western puppet!’”
The prize-winning novelist on colonialism, her family, and being tried in Zimbabwe for political protest.
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It is right to question the existence of the Crown – yet on the environment the King’s voice may be crucial
Right-wing ministers with a record of hostility to “green crap” can’t be trusted, while Charles was early to recognise…
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The Queen had an unwavering belief in the necessity of her strange, parent-like role
Mourning a long-lived figure is deeply bound up with accepting our own histories of loss.
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The right-wing press were dismayed by the lack of dissent from the royalist consensus
The BBC let them down so badly that even the Daily Mail was compelled to admit that the broadcaster…
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The history of the royals is tangled and bloody. But so is that of the nation they rule
The monarchy bears the fractures of the Union’s past, and underpins its present.
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How the Queen changed Britain
Elizabeth II’s legacy and example will endure. But the certainty she provided has gone.
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Death for her was a political act: why the Queen chose Scotland
She did nothing by accident, including her final trip to Balmoral. Was she loading the dice for the Union?
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The NS Poem: Floral Tribute
A new poem by Simon Armitage.
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King Charles III and his causes
Charles III is notorious for his political interventions. Will he be an activist monarch or follow his mother’s example?
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Can the Ukraine war now end only with Russia’s defeat?
We should not assume that a quick conclusion based on mutual concessions is the best way to deal with…
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The long shadow of Chairman Mao
How China’s uneven ascent has been driven by debt and the Communist Party’s obsessive pursuit of social stability.
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What Harold Wilson can teach Keir Starmer
A new biography shows how one of Labour’s most successful leaders kept the party united at all costs.
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JK Rowling’s The Ink Black Heart is confusing, insular and far too long
The latest Cormoran Strike novel from “Robert Galbraith” weighs 1.25 kilograms – making it heavier than a bag of…
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From Jim Crace to Cosey Fanni Tutti: recent books reviewed in short
Also featuring titles by Lawrence Osborne and Matthew Yeomans.
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Portraits of a Queen
From regal paintings to punk collages, images of Elizabeth II have alternately humanised and glorified her.
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Fifty years of Richard Mabey’s Food for Free
How the author’s 1972 guide to foraging anticipated today’s appetite for local, seasonal and sustainable eating.
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Architecture Notes: The Queen at the National Portrait Gallery
A royal opening in London at the turn of the millennium took place in a golden age for public…
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How Homogenic brought Björk into focus
Twenty-five years after its release, the Icelander’s third album sounds as urgent as ever.
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Moonage Daydream is a lavish and loving profile of David Bowie
In Brett Morgen’s new unconventional documentary, there are no facts, no dates, and a lot of the Starman himself.
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The pomp and ceremony of the Queen’s death is mad – and madly interesting
Highlights from the TV coverage include King Charles’s velvet mourning coat and Liz Truss’s extraordinary bum-curtsy.
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Can animals count? BBC radio finds out
Bees can recognise number patterns, not just of objects found in nature but even of random symbols.
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A more-than-favourable reception
Another first date, a painful stand-up set, and my best friend’s wedding.
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Even when the country is circling the plughole, pleasant things can happen
On the night Tory members’ votes were being counted, there was an incredible thunderstorm off the Sussex coast.
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This England: Crackers for Christmas
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
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Anne-Marie Imafidon Q&A: “Men have often forgotten that women even exist”
The Stem campaigner on Kenya, story-writing and the creation of GPS.
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