Labour needs to do more to win
Keir Starmer can credibly claim he is on a path to No 10, but it is uncertain whether his…
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
What could go wrong?
Letter of the week: A problem of scale
Write to [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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Penny Mordaunt’s coronation sword-bearing cuts a sharp contrast with fellow Tories
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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Why Rishi Sunak’s “Unicorn Kingdom” is a fantasy
If the PM wants an economy built on high-growth start-ups, it’ll take more than a fun name.
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The Met on the prowl, welcome to our new Lord Chancellor, and being mistaken for a minor royal
An American lady leaned in and whispered, “Are you going to the coronation?” This is where things went wrong.
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Putin under pressure
Russia’s war against Ukraine is coming home.
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Ukraine might win its war – but it won’t help the West’s wider struggle against autocracy
Led by hawks in the Biden administration, liberal democracies are stumbling into a commercial cold war with Beijing.
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If the Tories fail to change, they face electoral apocalypse in the Blue Wall
The problem is not Rishi Sunak – it is his right-wing MPs and activists.
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As strongman leaders around the world begin to fall, has authoritarianism peaked?
Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro both tested the democratic system and lost power. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could be next.
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First we canonised Emma Raducanu – then we hounded her off the tennis court
Since her US Open victory, the 20-year-old has been pursued by a hurricane of hype not remotely of her…
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What could go wrong for Keir Starmer?
The “coalition of chaos” attack line won’t work but Labour still faces big questions over its plans for government.
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Haiti’s descent into hell
Once a symbol of black liberation, Haiti has collapsed into anarchy. Now many see foreign intervention as their only…
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Liberal internationalism has failed, but we can live in a multipolar world
A new era of great-power rivalry and resource competition need not end in ruin.
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Britain must be pragmatic, but we can still pursue our vision of a better world
We should not abandon idealism nor our faltering international institutions, but new alliances are also needed.
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The plain-speaking philosophers
Nikhil Krishnan’s A Terribly Serious Adventure shows how Oxford’s “ordinary language” movement, pioneered by JL Austin and Gilbert Ryle,…
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The NS Poem: All Points of Light
A new poem by Maya C Popa.
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Plumbing the depths of Boris Johnson’s incompetence
Anthony Seldon’s account of Johnson’s time in Downing Street confirms he was hopelessly out of his depth.
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Soldiers in love
Men at War, Luke Turner’s tender account of servicemen’s transgressive private lives, transforms our understanding of the Second World…
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How English cricket disappeared
This year’s Wisden chronicles and fights back against the destruction of the summer game.
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From Caleb Azumah Nelson to the artists of Kettle’s Yard: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring a biography of Messalina and a story collection by Shalash the Iraqi.
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Catherine Lacey’s biography that isn’t
In inventing a figure who rubbed shoulders with David Bowie and Susan Sontag, the American novelist thrillingly subverts the…
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The quiet persistence of the orchid
The plant has a habit of flowering when we least expect it, and has turned many humans into magpie-like…
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When Eurovision came to Liverpool
In a festival of geopolitics, money, culture and high camp, the proud outsider city spies a chance for renewal
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The Eight Mountains is a rare portrait of male friendship
This moving film takes on a truly unusual subject: a durable, unstated, non-sexual relationship between two men.
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The madness of King Charles’s coronation
TV viewers were offered the BBC’s bland, benign authority, David Starkey’s frenzied robe facts and Sky’s celeb-spotting – and…
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BBC Sounds podcast Believe in Magic: a dark and strange story of online deception
A new series by Jamie Bartlett investigates a charity and its founders, and becomes a cautionary tale of social…
In the gym, lifting weights, I am enthralled by how far a teabag can be thrown
In between sets a gym bro approached me and asked what I was laughing at so audibly. The answer:…
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A train to Oxford means either a broken heart or the middle class at its most benign
On the train to Oxford, and my heart is full of misgiving. I have only been to Oxford twice…
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This England: We can’t cone-done it
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
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Russell Tovey’s Q&A: “In another life, I’d run the Tate Modern”
The actor on Derek Jarman, the diaries of Keith Haring and why you should never apologise for enthusiasm.
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