In this week’s New Statesman we look at what the declining power of Rupert Murdoch means for the media and politics. In our cover story, Rafael Behr asks if David Cameron can credibly claim to speak the public’s behalf any more. Elsewhere, John Pilger warns that amid the scandal, there’s an acrid smell of business as usual, Ian Blair, the former head of the Met, argues that MPs shouldn’t meddle in policing, Alice Miles writes on the school-gates reaction to the scandal, and Alan B’Stard ponders making a bid for News International.
Also this week, Helen Lewis-Hasteley interviews the comedian Josie Long, David Blanchflower says that sanity will prevail in the US but Europe reamins gripped by economic madness, and leading thinkers including Philip Pullman, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and P Z Myers tell us why they don’t believe in God.
All this, plus Dan Hodges on how Maurice Glasman’s Blue Labour fell out of favour, Will Self on his modest proposal for Africa, and George Pitcher on why the Archbishop of Canterbury showed him the door.