What do you do?
I am an actuary.
Where do you live?
Reigate, Surrey.
Do you vote?
Yes.
How long have you been a subscriber?
Since 2010.
What made you start?
The hung parliament – for a balanced view, I began reading both the NS and the Spectator.
Is the NS bug in the family?
My identical twin brother is an occasional reader.
What pages do you flick to first?
The Leader.
[See also: The Booker Prize is becoming irrelevant]
How do you read yours?
Cover to cover, Friday evening.
What would you like to see more of in the NS?
Novel reviews, and more on the Goldsmiths Prize in particular.
Who are your favourite NS writers?
Ellen Peirson-Hagger, Tom Gatti, John Gray.
Who would you put on the cover of the NS?
Bukayo Saka.
With which political figure would you least like to be stuck in a lift?
Mick Lynch.
All-time favourite NS article?
“Europe’s new Reformation” by Brendan Simms, from February 2019.
The New Statesman is…
quality, wide-ranging and thought-provoking writing.
[See also: AS Byatt’s hard truths]
This article appears in the 22 Nov 2023 issue of the New Statesman, The paranoid style