The silver spoon spy: how Cambridge double-agent Donald Maclean got away with it for so long
Tall, fair-haired and attractive, Maclean maintained a surface allure of charm that eventually failed to obscure the demons wrestling…
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The Corbyn ultimatum
My house of sky: the enduring cult of JA Baker’s The Peregrine
Since its publication in 1967, The Peregrine has been celebrated as the “gold standard” of nature writing, counting Werner…
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Arsène taught us not just to hoof it and hope, but now’s the time for a Brit at Arsenal
A stranger in a foreign land, Arsène came across our lumpen, insulated, out of date ways and shone a new…
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The case for Slow Journalism in an age of impulsive social media
Quick, strong emotion is often an enemy of truth, which is what most hacks are meant to be in…
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Oh, that magic feeling – the intergalactic connections between space travel and rock
No one has made a record like Abbey Road since 1969, and no one’s been as excited about space…
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The longevity of Californian wines – survivors of fires, earthquakes and the Prohibition
Yet Zinfandel is still misunderstood.
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An illogical conclusion: why Radio 4’s resurrection of Hitchhiker’s Guide falls flat
As the sixth full-cast series of Hitchhiker’s Guide ended, it was hard not to mop one’s bleeding ears and…
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A seaside horror in Jersey: Michael Pearce’s Beast lacks much-needed wildness
But Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn are exceptional in this thriller with fairy-tale overtones.
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Abi Morgan’s The Split: finally, a drama in which women are allowed to enjoy their work
Morgan’s women do not wander the lonely tundra after hours, bottle of wine in hand; they have – imagine…
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Loaded with ore: poets Ishion Hutchinson and Leontia Flynn grapple with history, heritage and literary tradition
Although very different poets, Hutchinson and Flynn have each written books that ask difficult questions about lineage.
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Phil Whitaker’s sixth novel, You, explores the politics of a fractured family
You is the story of a divorced father who believes he has been cut unfairly out of a daughter’s…
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Superheroes of suspension: how the Brooklyn Bridge was built
The Brooklyn Bridge is an icon – but few know the quintessentially American story behind it.
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Philip Ball’s Beyond Weird is a whirlwind tour of the strangeness of quantum physics
Quantum physics is less about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than information: about what can be known and…
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Donald Trump the mafia Don: James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty
Comey’s wildly anticipated portrait of the US President compares him with the Italian mafiosos of New York.
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I’m leaving the study in search of a new life selecting the England cricket team
After six years as a New Statesman columnist, it’s time for an exciting new direction.
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The collapse of Europe’s mainstream centre left
From France and the Netherlands to Italy and Germany, the centre left and social democrats are losing and radicals…
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Corbyn’s capital: the story of how London became a Labour city
How one of the world’s richest cities turned against the Tories and embraced the radical socialism of Jeremy Corbyn.
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The global recession around the corner
The world economy is growing, yet among experts there is a nagging sense that the good times cannot last.
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The Corbyn ultimatum
“Corbyn-hating” MPs must end their shameless smears – or face the consequences
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Why social media is a delicious, addictive treat that should be treated like fast food
We can’t resist junk information on our own – we need manufacturers to put the digital equivalent of the…
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Adam Kay’s Diary: Running marathons, leaving medicine, and a Calippo stuck where the sun doesn’t shine
Announcing in 2013 that I’d be running the marathon elicited more shock from friends than when I came out, or left my…
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One Syrian teenager’s quest to rebuild Aleppo
“We don’t want to preserve Aleppo as this theatre of war. We want to bring out the essence of…
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Mariana Mazzucato: “Trump is a passing problem in the US – Brexit is not”
The Italian-American economist discusses her new book on the true meaning of wealth creation.
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Commons Confidential: The Troubles return as police storm a Sinn Fein meeting
Your weekly dose of gossip from Westminster.
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Crumbling Britain: how austerity is hollowing out the heart of Tory Somerset
With two-thirds of children’s centres closing, West Somerset has the worst social mobility in the country – and families…
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What has happened to the Liberal Democrats?
As Brexit nears, Vince Cable is struggling – but his is a poisoned inheritance.
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Why scrapping ID cards was the wrong decision for poor, marginalised groups
If we had a braver government, it would revisit the issue.
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Leader: The voice of courage cannot be denied
This week saw the first statue of a woman unveiled outside parliament, remembering the suffragist Millicent Garrett Fawcett.
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