Leader: The return of stagflation
Rather than poorly targeted tax cuts, the UK needs a more generous welfare state to protect individuals from the…
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
A Dream of Britain
Letter of the week: Europe’s new long game
Write to letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
By
Inside the mental health epidemic among teenage girls
Our girls are struggling. How can we help?
By
“Unity is hard to sustain when you’re being bombed”: Lindsey Hilsum’s diary from Ukraine
In war, most people will save their own skin and that of their family before helping others.
By
Why Thomas Piketty is optimistic about the left’s future
The French economist on his new book, the living standards crisis and why the “historical movement towards equality” will…
By
As a unified sense of British nationhood fades, we must ask: what is England?
As the UK fragments, we are experiencing a reawakening of English national consciousness.
By
Don’t let the Treasury sugarcoat it: we are about to undergo global economic shock
Do Rishi Sunak’s invocations of “resilience” really rise to the moment?
By
Putin’s war risks a “clash of civilisations” – the West must not fall into his trap
The realities of the world today cannot be adequately understood through a civilisational prism.
By
There can be no more illusions about the nature of Putin’s rule – he is a war criminal
During the past 22 years the Russian president has invaded Georgia, Ukraine and Crimea, yet Western leaders still thought…
By
United on Ukraine, Nato powers now see the world from Warsaw’s point of view
Vladimir Putin’s war is transforming an array of old arguments among the Western allies – over Russia and Turkey,…
By
The Kremlin’s illegal war stresses the need for all nations to stand up for democracy
Western governments must demonstrate that their values – including vigorous, open debate – are being prioritised at home as…
By
The sunny national story conjured by the 2012 London Olympics has clouded over
The turbulent and toxic political decade that followed the Games has exploded any illusion of British unity.
By
Russia’s war with the West
Vladimir Putin has cast himself as a historical leader, harnessing past grievances and tsarist imperialism to justify his assault…
By
Michael Sheen: We are a nation in search of a story
Britain is divided by class, race, faith and history. For his guest-edited issue of the New Statesman, the actor…
By
“I tried to give Britain a different narrative”: Tony Blair and Michael Sheen in conversation
The former prime minister and the actor who played him talk “wokeness”, national identity, and what Blair has in…
By
What does it mean to be British?
America has its Dream, France its Republic – but Britain suffers from a failure of imagination.
By
Postcards from a small island
Encounters with Britishness, from Bernardine Evaristo, David Peace, Charlotte Church, Armando Iannucci, David Olusoga and more.
By
Mark Gatiss: On not going to Oxbridge
After enduring countless questions about where I studied, I have realised that class, that particularly insidious – and very…
By
Day and age
A new short story by Ali Smith, the acclaimed author of the Seasonal Quartet.
By
Lucy Easthope reflects on life after catastrophe
The author reveals how the way we recover from disaster goes to the heart of what it means to…
By
The NS Poem: Pennies from Heaven
A new poem by Hugo Williams.
By
Reviewed in short: New books from Brian Brivati, Anne Tyler, Helen Mort and Michelle Drouin
Losing Afghanistan by Brivati, French Braid by Tyler, A Line Above the Sky by Mort and Out of Touch…
By
Mansplaining Carrie Johnson
Michael Ashcroft’s heavy-breathing biography of Mrs Boris Johnson is deeply revealing – of its author and his tribe of…
By
Literature under Xi Jinping
Chinese fiction is booming, but authors cannot escape the regime’s tightening grip.
By
Lessons from the wrong end of a fox hunt
One of the UK’s largest remaining predators, with a reputation for cruelty and cunning: the Linlithgow and Stirlingshire Hunt’s…
By
I don’t want to tick the box that says “Other. Please explain”
The government wants me to squeeze myself into a category, so it knows where I belong.
By
My dreams were deemed “unrealistic”. But your background shouldn’t determine your future
We all have aspirations. We must to reject the idea that certain opportunities are only for certain kinds of…
By
My therapist couldn’t see how class shapes lives
I didn’t need to be analysed – I needed to be fed.
By
We don’t need “a way out” – we need ways in
I wrote in the silence, filled my children’s world with stories. But that was never “real writing” because people like…
By
In 1990s Scotland, our teachers taught us nothing we could relate to
Can you make a 16-year-old, fresh off a weekend of cheap stimulants and Dutch techno, sit down on Monday…
By
A tale of two sisters and the eleven-plus
It was results day and the news was starting to sink in. I had passed my eleven-plus. My sister…
By
In Cumbria, gay men are outnumbered by sheep
But in the homophobic 1980s, this was no joke.
By
I’m not asking if I can take a seat at the table. I am demanding you move
When I was just a snot-nosed kid, I failed my eleven-plus. And so, my life changed.
By
I’m proud to be from Bradford – but it has cost me
I have a love-hate relationship with being northern.
By
The spectre of Grenfell haunts my family’s area
Growing up in inner-city London, I know that the fire was a manifestation of decades of systemic contempt for…
By
How John Aldridge created a rural idyll in north Essex
The artist neither chased fame nor tired of his small patch of England.
By
The Worst Person in the World is an exuberant portrait of a young woman flailing as she approaches 30
The third instalment in Joachim Trier’s Oslo trilogy is warm and fast-moving, with a whiff of the pop promo…
By
I can’t understand the appeal of Bridgerton
Terrible dialogue, repetitive plots, preposterous wigs. Why on earth is this candy-coloured drivel so popular?
By
The legends and folklore of Alderley Edge
In a new BBC Radio 4 documentary, Archaeology of a Storyteller, Alan Garner explores the history of the area…
By
Our diets are international, but at the breakfast table, Britishness reigns
The fry-up occupies a special place in the national psyche – survey after survey names the cooked breakfast as…
By
Like many privileged migrants, I came here because of love
I feel I should be more ashamed of this government than people who grew up in Britain because I…
By
A publicist asks if I’m ready for the weekend. I ask myself what that involves
Promotional emails that vie for critics’ attention are resorting to ever-more baffling tactics.
By
This England: Whiskey on tap
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
By
Subscriber of the Week: Remy Leaf
Email ellys.woodhouse@newstatesman.co.uk if you would like to be the New Statesman's Subscriber of the Week.
By
Neil Gaiman Q&A: “As long as there’s a Tardis, all’s right with the world”
The author discusses his favourite unflappable literary characters, his love of the Isle of Skye and Doctor Who.
By