Leader: The disunited kingdom
At the close of the last century, the United Kingdom appeared to be moving towards a new constitutional settlement.…
ByNew Statesman Magazine
In this week’s magazine
They think it’s all over
Labour was meant to surge this week, but it’s the Tories who think that victory is theirs for the taking
The Conservatives have a new political strategy: it’s called “lying”. They edited a video of Keir Starmer, the shadow…
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In the age of Trump and Putin, Xi and Macron, spheres of influence are making a comeback
What do the humanitarian crisis in Syria, the attempt to impeach Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron’s proclamations on Europe and…
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Gloria De Piero’s Diary: Campaigning karaoke, unsure voters and why I regret being a frontbencher for so long
Back in July, I told Ashfield Labour members that I wouldn’t be standing again at the next general election.…
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Christmas adverts sell us a myth of British generosity – one that is strikingly absent from our politics
I’ll admit it: I cried. There’s no shame in it, really, as millions of pounds were invested to ensure…
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We demand an absurd level of certainty from our politicians – and this makes them stupid
There is little that’s enigmatic about Boris Johnson, but to many people, he is a riddle. How can such…
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Why Russia and Ukraine are still at war
Can there be peace in Ukraine? This was the question facing foreign policy experts at the annual Security Forum…
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Commons Confidential: No taxi for Andy McDonald
Invisible Chancellor Sajid Javid is growing frustrated at appearing in public as regularly as Lord Lucan. Cynical liar Boris…
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“Mark Fisher was the intellectual leader of a generation”
The early weeks of 2017 were traumatic for Alex Niven. His newborn son was not sleeping. His partner had…
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First Thoughts: Flooding in Venice, royal term limits and why professional sportsmen are like robots
Consider what the floods in Venice tell us about modern politicians’ capacity to think long term and humanity’s prospects…
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Manners maketh monsters
Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview was a stark demonstration that civility is defined by institutions of power and privilege, to…
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Revisiting Paul Bailey’s astonishing first novel, At the Jerusalem
Paul Bailey was 30, a lapsed actor and sometime shop assistant, when he published his astonishing first novel in…
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NS Recommends: new books from David Skelton, Ben Okri and Grace Blakeley
Little Platoons David Skelton The 2016 Brexit vote was in part a plea and protest from Britain’s regions against…
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Jarvis Cocker: Sheffield in the 1980s, Tim Etchells, and how I lost sleep over theatre
What’s the opposite of nostalgia? I ask that question because Tim Etchell’s stories take me back to a time…
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Sarah Hall’s new collection Sudden Traveller is her most personal and beautiful work yet
It’s hard to believe that Sudden Traveller is only Sarah Hall’s third short fiction collection. Shortlisted for the Booker…
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Lydia Davis’s Essays: a masterful, lucid collection
“Revising One Sentence” is the title of one of the essays in Lydia Davis’s masterful, lucid collection. No single…
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In How’s Work?, Esther Perel takes on professional relationships
Esther Perel is a Belgian psychotherapist known for her work in couples counselling, and even better-known to the general public…
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The optimism of Steve McQueen’s “Year 3”
On a Monday morning in Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries, I watch as the artist, film director and screenwriter Steve…
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The unconventional storytelling of Mati Diop’s Atlantics
Two of this year’s strongest, strangest films, both directed by women and each addressing the lives of exploited people,…
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BBC One’s The War of the Worlds is pretty much perfect Sunday night TV
HG Wells’s novel of 1898, The War of the Worlds, doesn’t so much speak to our times as bawl…
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BBC Radio 4 heads behind the curtain during the early days of the National Theatre
I once tried to buy Vivien Leigh’s wig at an auction. A bleached, bedraggled do that she’d worn as…
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Winter is coming, and stubborn little field mice are beginning to take up residence in my house
Every year, at around this time, a few of my closest neighbours come to my house and take up…
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Six vodkas and five champagnes down, and it’s time to talk to George Osborne
It’s been an unusual week, in that I have actually spent it seeing people instead of staying in bed…
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Tea with Tal Wilkenfeld, the young jazz prodigy who’s a part of my late-night family ritual
No one really knows where musical genius comes from. Genetics. Pushy parents. An infancy steeped in recorded sound. A combination…
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How I turned myself into a human computer to rate the value of every Spurs player
It’s almost 50 years ago now, gawd I can’t believe it, that I was about to start following a…
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Clive James: “My earliest memory? The roar of the rain in my back yard”
Clive James was born in Sydney in 1939, and moved to England in 1962. In 1968, he captained the…
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