Magazine

The Tories’ fate was decided long before the D-Day blunder

For the Conservatives, the race was probably already lost in January 2023.

The Ozempic effect

Magic Pill, Johann Hari’s study of the rise of diet drugs, sheds light on our deeply dysfunctional food culture.

The election debates: as petty and embarrassing as a staff-room squabble

The politicians arguing on BBC and ITV reminded me of the teachers at my comprehensive after too much Mellow Bird’s.

An assisted cycle through scenic Silesia

How I conquered picturesque Polish volcanoes, e-bikes and endless vegetarian meals.

What do you do? Professor of business enterprise and innovation at the University of Essex. Where do you live? In…

James Shapiro Q&A: “I’d like to live in 1600s London – just for a week”

The American academic on finding fulfilment in Shakespeare, structuralism and dry-stone walls.

Queenie is a crude parody of real women

The charmless TV adaptation of Candice Carty-Williams’s novel is full of cliché, cod psychology and faux empowerment.

Viggo Mortensen’s self-indulgent western

In The Dead Don’t Hurt, the actor struggles to update an archaic genre.

This England: Clucking hell

This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain –…

Rediscovering the bright lights

An old album and a Pet Shop Boys gig remind me of music’s power to refresh memories and forge new…

The officer class is swelling Labour’s ranks

Your weekly dose of gossip from the campaign trail.

Breaking sugar’s hold makes culinary pleasures even sweeter

Having reset my relationship with sugary food, I’m no longer led by my sweet tooth.

Letter of the week: The joys of spring

Write to [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.

Teenagers don’t need mandatory national service: politicians do

With citizenship training for MPs, the Commons would see a marked improvement, as would our response to crises.

Waging lawfare against Trump will not end well for Democrats

Progressives must speak out against partiality in the legal process and the endless persecution of the former president.

Keir Starmer’s promise of stability will come back to haunt him

With Britain in ruins, change without disruption means no change at all.

What if the polls are right?

A Labour landslide could change the politics of a future Keir Starmer government.

Kemi Badenoch and the legal definition of sex

The presumptive front-runner for the next Conservative leadership contest has been unfairly vilified.

Britain’s gentle revolution

Labour has benefited from years of Tory misrule, but does it have the capacity to deliver national renewal?

What the West gets wrong about the war in Ukraine

If Kyiv’s allies had identified Putin’s invasion as an act of colonisation, they might have won more support from the…