Leader: Britain faces two lost decades
Boris Johnson’s government should have taxed the UK’s vast housing wealth to pay for social care, rather than squeezing…
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
Sunak’s Game
Letter of the week: Mind the independence gap
Write to [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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The psychology of the partygate scandal
The delayed backlash over the misconduct in No 10 shows that scandals often erupt not when people uncover the…
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Lionel Barber’s Diary: Boris Johnson’s new leaf, inflation fears, and being headhunted by Ofcom
We are led to believe the Prime Minister is about to drop the habits of a lifetime, but the…
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Iceland’s prime minister: “My opposition to Nato has not changed”
Katrín Jakobsdóttir on the rebirth of the Nordic left.
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Is Rishi Sunak determined enough to end the farce of the Johnson premiership?
If the Chancellor becomes Tory leader he will inherit a world of trouble, and then run a very different…
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Ukraine’s imagined European identity is irreconcilable with the political reality
Germany clearly wants the EU to have a workable relationship with Putin, and the bloc cannot provide security for…
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I’m quitting Netflix – but not for the reasons you might think
I waste my time watching shows that aren’t good enough to recommend to anyone, but aren’t bad enough for…
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English cricket is in a deep crisis that the ritual sacking of a few coaches won’t fix
If England’s Ashes defeat tells us anything, it’s that the whole system needs reform.
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How Russia’s neighbours are turning against Putin
The more Vladimir Putin tries to bring post-Soviet states closer to Moscow, the more he repels them. Is the…
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The rise of high-tax Britain
Though the Conservatives still lionise Margaret Thatcher, they are raising taxes to the highest level since the early 1950s…
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Are you mentally ill, or very unhappy? Psychiatrists can’t agree
As rates of diagnosis rise, a fierce debate rages in psychiatry. Are we experiencing a parallel pandemic, or having…
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The sinister return of eugenics
Eugenicist thinking was rejected after the Holocaust, but in the era of Big Tech, the idea that humans can be…
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Reviewed in short: New titles by Elizabeth Wilson, Michael Grothaus, Jonathan Katz and Whitney Goodman
Playing with Fire by Wilson, Trust No One by Grothaus, Gangsters of Capitalism by Katz and Toxic Positivity by…
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Sheila Heti’s dream-world
Pure Colour, Heti’s risk-taking, reality-bending new novel about a father and daughter, is a thing of frustration and wonder.
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Why are vegans so reviled?
Vegans makes meat-eaters aware of their hypocrisy, argues Ed Winters in This is Vegan Propaganda – and people hate them…
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How Isidore Isou ignited an age of youth rebellion
The “energy and savagery” of Isou’s Lettrist revolution lived on in May 68 and punk.
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Carl Moll’s paintings for a perfect life
How the Austrian artist’s conception of the ideal existence was muddied by Nazism.
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How Jim Morrison killed rock ’n’ roll
Unfairly treated by history, the Doors frontman turned youth rebellion into an art form – and did away with…
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Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is full of joyful details
This is a cool, controlled film of three parts, each taking the form of a triangle.
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BBC One’s This Is Going To Hurt is cold, mean and – crucially – not funny
Ben Whishaw is miscast in this adaptation of Adam Kay’s bestselling medical memoir, and there is something badly amiss…
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A new instalment of This American Life uncovers racism in the US police force
“A Couple Walks Into a House” tells the story of how a real estate viewing revealed the twisted private…
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Over time, humans have eaten 6,000 plant species. Now, we eat just nine
By expanding our diet, we can protect species and landscapes from the relentless march of monoculture.
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Watching the Company cast album, I sense the thrill and the terror of singing in front of Stephen Sondheim
The commitment to getting it right verges on cruelty, insisting on take after take – and all of these…
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With my new glasses, I can see what the woman inspecting my flat can see
“Any problems in the bedroom?” she asked. At this point, I had to fight really hard to suppress my…
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This England: Lovely jubbly
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
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Sian Conway-Wood Q&A: “On climate, there’s too much talk and not enough action”
The sustainability expert on the suffragettes, leaving the corporate world behind, and her hero Dolly Parton.
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