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Society
Back in the North
- 25 September 2008
The level of deprivation in northern industrial parts of England during the 1930s is often downplayed by historians today. But this sobering account of life on the dole in the region, written for the New Statesman by a former coal miner, offers a different, more personal perspective. He presents a complex picture – of stoicism, apathy and a lack of radicalism, and a very human focus on the solace of pastimes in a harsh economic climate.
Society
Ordinary people
- 11 September 2008
- 2 comments
As a young woman, the novelist and recent Nobel Prize-winner for literature Doris Lessing wrote occasional articles for the New Statesman. In this piece she describes going in search of what D H Lawrence called “ordinary people” during a holiday in Paris, perhaps her favourite city after London. In a few waspish sentences, she conveys vivid and personal impressions of some of those she encountered during her journey and on the Left Bank in 1960
Society
Short talk with a Fascist beast
- 04 September 2008
The Notting Hill race riots, which took place 50 years ago, were the first significant outburst in London against unrestricted black immigration. The American Clancy Sigal, then a young journalist, wrote a revealing account of a casual encounter with a handful of the white youths involved in the attacks. He portrays a group of frustrated young men, the most prominent of whom confesses to being both a Fascist admirer and a fan of the Communist Party.
Europe
The Czech crisis and the New Statesman
- 28 August 2008
Throughout the 1930s, the New Statesman upheld a principled resistance to Nazi Germany. It was therefore all the more dismaying to many readers when, in an August 1938 editorial, Kingsley Martin argued that Czechoslovakia's frontiers might have to be redrawn to enable a German minority to join the Third Reich. Martin admitted that the editorial "pursued" him for many years, even though, the following month, he denounced the betrayal of the Czechs to Hitler
Society
Dubcek's terrible bargain
- 21 August 2008
- 1 comment
The Warsaw Pact's occupation of Czechoslovakia from 21 August 1968 shocked many in the west who had hoped that the country was developing a more market-oriented socialism acceptable to the Soviet Union. This report from Prague by Kopkind, an American correspondent on the NS, reflected the ambiguities of its aftermath. It took many months before the Kremlin was able to consolidate its rule through a new, hardline communist regime.
Society
Youth
- 14 August 2008
Moral panic about Britain’s juvenile delinquents is nothing new. Nor are suggestions of what should be done to deal with them. Even during the Second World War both the government and the general public were alarmed by what they saw as the growing problem of unruly youth. This New Statesman article argued that the answer must be much more training and education for the young, and that a reoriented national service scheme, even in peacetime, could also help.
Society
Trains and classes
- 07 August 2008
During the Second World War, the novelist J B Priestley was seen as the national voice of common sense. A regular contributor to the New Statesman, he wrote perceptively about the British popular mood. In this wartime article, Priestley identified a growing resentment among railway users over the distinction between first- and third-class seats. In their irritation, he saw an expression of changing attitudes towards the concept of “class”
Society
Behind Serb lines
- 31 July 2008
- 5 comments
The recent capture of the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in Belgrade has revived memories of the terrible events that took place in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. Karadzic has been charged with genocide and crimes against humanity for his policy of ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats. With this eyewitness report, published by the New Statesman in summer 1995, Paul Hockenos provided a vivid picture of life in Dr Karadzic's Republika Srpska.
Society
Ours is a laager
- 24 July 2008
- 1 comment
For more than a hundred years, the Durham Miners' Gala was a firm fixture in the calendar of the British Labour movement. But in July 1988 the miners gathered together at their annual festival for the last time. In future the gala was to be organised for all the manual working class of north-east England. James Stephenson describes that historic event in the City of Durham as a ceremony of remembrance, a requiem for a lost world before the new Labour project's arrival.
Society
Michael Foot v the New Statesman
- 17 July 2008
- 2 comments
In 1978 Bruce Page, the editor of the New Statesman, reprinted extracts from a stirring speech made by Michael Foot as a Labour rebel in 1968. Foot's criticisms contrasted starkly with his position a decade later - as a leading member of the Labour government - on its economic policy. Foot sent a vituperative letter in his own defence, printed the following week. It ended with a flick of contempt at a staff journalist, Christopher Hitchens, who responded similarly.
