You know how the Americans used to pay money to look at the deformed in circus freak shows? If that appeals to you, try the modern day version.

The utterly loathsome programme Trinny and Susannah undress the nation is another spin on the Gok Wan show how to look good naked. (Notice I'm not linking to either of them).

I'm not sure which came first but basically both have [...]

This week on newstatesman.com the Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov writes exclusively on Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, who related the terrible truth about Soviet totalitarianism in his Gulag Archipelago.

Kurkov observes: "Alexander Isaevich outlived his era and never truly accepted the new ‘post-soviet’ epoch.

"Having sincerely dedicated his life to a desperate struggle against communism, in 1991 Solzhenitsyn suddenly found himself without a battle to fight."

We hear from the great AL [...]

It's all looking rather bleak for Gordon Brown. In fact, if you agree with veteran Conservative politician John Gummer, the situation's actually worse for the prime minister than it was for John Major as his government faltered to extinction.

Writing this week on newstatesman.com, Gummer says: "I fought my first election more than forty years ago and I can’t remember anything comparable. Even as a cabinet minister living through the [...]

First my thanks to Sian Berry who has been a regular contributor on newstatesman.com since we relaunched on 30 November 2006.

Having spent a great deal of the past 18 months in the public eye as Green co-principal speaker and then as their candidate in the London mayoral elections, she is off to work in a key role in her party's press office. We wish her well. You can read [...]

The extraordinary resignation of Boris Johnson's deputy mayor Ray Lewis saw me called in to BBC London on Friday night to take part in a discussion on the Tessa Dunlop show that involved London Assembly members and callers from around the capital.

It was two hours of lively debate as we all tried to take stock of the fact that Johnson, elected just two months ago on 1 [...]

Let me take a few minutes to put the boot into the Cheery Digest. A confirmed miserablist, I'm clearly not the target audience for this sort of thing.

Nor have I any idea who is behind this blog so why not read this and draw your own conclusions...

NEWS: Why we love the Queen ...

There's no two ways about it, our dear old Queen has a twinkle [...]

I commend to you the blog of Tory MP and friend of the Fundies (that's Christian Fundamentalists in case you didn't know) Nadine Dorries.

Have a good read and then contrast and compare the way her party leader, Lexus Dave Cameron, tries to pass himself off. You now know the form: no more laughing at the poor. No more scapegoating the single mothers. The caring wrinkling of the brow [...]

I fear I may have offended the amiable Stanley Johnson - father of London's new mayor. Stanley - a one-time Tory MEP and their enthusiastic if unsuccessful candidate for Teignbridge at the last general election - has expressed a desire to succeed his Bozza as MP for the über-safe Tory seat of Henley.

The news prompted me to fire off a rather cheeky email to Pa Johnson who [...]

One politician who simply defies the description 'grey' is Lembit Öpik. The ebullient MP for Montgomeryshire first caught the collective media eye when he plummeted to earth.

He broke his back in the 1998 paragliding accident but, fortunately, recovered.

Other than that, Öpik is mainly known for two things - one, paradoxically, is his fascination with asteroids hitting the earth. The other is his unfeasibly eye-catching love life.

Earlier this [...]

The count down is well underway to the London mayoral election on 1 May. This is the closest contest yet and there's a very real danger of a Tory win.

As always with elections, turnout is key and in the hope of boosting interest in the 2008 contest we've been looking at some of the issues we feel are important - transport, crime, housing and so on.

But what do [...]