In choosing Boris Johnson, Conservative MPs are making a big bet on their future
Boris Johnson’s appeal to Conservative MPs is based on two fronts: electability and inevitability. On the first front, the…
ByNew Statesman Magazine
In this week’s magazine
Bad news
We know a lot less than we think about the world – which explains the allure of “simplism”
From 30,000 feet, Britain’s coastline has a familiar sweep and shape. Zoom closer in – to, say, the cliffs…
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After bingeing on addiction memoirs, I still crave the untold drinking stories like my own
In my early twenties I went through a phase of bingeing on addiction memoirs. I finished one and had…
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Gavin Williamson is the Uriah Heep of politics – and now he’s in the service of Boris Johnson
Readers will remember Gavin Williamson, who appeared from nowhere to become a Conservative MP (there is nothing wrong with…
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Leader: A northern English awakening
In 1962, Harold Macmillan’s home secretary Henry Brooke warned that if the government did not “prevent two nations developing…
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Gwyneth Williams’s Diary: Quitting the BBC, butterflies in Madagascar and fighting Aids in Zimbabwe
It turned out to be a fine week to leave the BBC. I called my old friend, Helen Jackson,…
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First Thoughts: The throbbing machismo of Brexiteers, rise of the Woke Right – and farewell to the NS
So, farewell then. This is my final weekly column for the New Statesman, after eight (eight!) years as assistant,…
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How the libertarian ghost of Ayn Rand haunts the economic policies of the Tory candidates
In 1979, a Conservative government was elected on a transformative policy platform. Margaret Thatcher promised to cut taxes, shrink…
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The death of Abdul Baset Sarout, Syria’s singing soldier
The songbird of the Syrian revolution, Abdul Baset Sarout, was killed on 8 June while fighting against forces loyal…
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Commons Confidential: Tom Watson’s anaconda coup
Snuffling Michael Gove is privately beating himself up for admitting the cocaine snorting that wrecked the launch of his…
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Alastair Campbell: “There’s a campaign in there. So get out and do it!”
On Thursday 23 May 2019, Alastair Campbell was sitting in his kitchen in London, pen poised over a ballot…
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Review: The People’s Flag and the Union Jack
In 1987, the conservative journalist Peregrine Worsthorne observed: “Much of the stability of this country depended on the Labour Party,…
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Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women: a bold and timely portrait of female sexual desire
Lisa Taddeo’s debut Three Women is an eight-year study of a subject that was thought not to exist in…
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NS Recommends: New books from Ocean Vuong, Steve Jones, and more
At the Pond: Swimming at the Hampstead Ladies’ Pond “The Pond was full but I was alone in my…
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George Clooney’s Catch-22 adaption is undeniably good. So why did it leave me so cold?
Some things can be entirely brilliant and admirable without being terribly enjoyable. I’ve always felt this about Joseph Heller’s…
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Could Radio 3 recreate the soundscape of a dark, dank cave on the Inner Hebrides?
Can a digital reconstruction of a real soundscape inspire a glorious musical response? Radio 3 promised it could, with…
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The conflicted nostalgia of Toy Story 4
Along with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Jurassic Park and The Mask, Pixar’s original Toy Story (1995) did more to…
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At the Spice Girls reunion tour, their hits sound like classics
There is a wild feel at Wembley Stadium before the last Spice Girls show: a man lies drunk under…
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Get rich or litigate trying: the story of the Winklevoss twins
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are “mirror” twins, which means that they came not only from a single fertilised egg,…
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We were all utterly ready for my youngest to finish school – so why am I blinking back tears?
That’s it, school’s out, and not just for summer, but like the song says, forever. No more pencils, no…
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A few weeks back, I mentioned I was doing an onstage event. Here’s how it went down
“Oi!” A cross text from my daughter begins. “Why didn’t you invite me to whatever it was you were…
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In defence of Jamie Oliver
It’s hard to think of many businesses whose failure would attract the same level of vitriolic glee as Jamie…
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Kit de Waal Q&A: “Maybe young women will save the day“
Kit de Waal was born in Birmingham in 1960 to an Irish mother and a Caribbean father. Just three…
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