Leader: A conspiracy of silence over Brexit
The Tories boast that Brexit is done, but only now are the consequences of No 10’s “oven-ready deal” becoming…
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
Britain isn’t working
Letters of the week: Dark heart of government
Write to letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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Shadow ministers rail against Starmer’s picket-line ban
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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The betrayal of Hong Kong
Twenty-five years since the city passed from British to Chinese rule, its once-vibrant civil society has been crushed.
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Lawrence Freedman’s Diary: My ban from entering Russia and memories of Cold War encounters with the KGB
I was last on the Kremlin’s most recent list of people to be sanctioned. This suggested I was something…
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Jonathan Haidt: “America is the ghost of liberal democracies’ future”
The social psychologist believes bitter online discourse is hastening the spread of US-style recriminatory politics.
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Boris Johnson will use the strikes to mount a comeback and torment the Labour Party
A wave of public sector strikes is an issue big enough to prompt the Conservatives to trigger a snap…
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The fracturing of French politics spells instability – but also a chance for renewal
With Emmanuel Macron forced to negotiate on legislation, the Assemblée Nationale matters more than it has in decades.
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Whatever Moscow’s military defeats in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is winning the energy war
Russia’s exports to Eurasia are so great, its resource power won’t be dented by sanctions imposed only by the…
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Emma Thompson’s new film is an absurd view of what a middle-aged woman’s life is worth
In Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Nancy says that paying for sex has been her only adventure in…
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Why even the Brexiteers are in despair over Brexit
Leavers have collided with the reality that the potential benefits of Brexit are far outweighed by the costs.
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A new age of global war
Europe believed it had banished war for good. But Russia’s aggression in Ukraine shows we must prepare for armed…
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From aardvark to woke: inside the Oxford English Dictionary
The OED’s task – to define every English word – is as ambitious as it was 150 years ago.
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The Death of Consensus: the recurring nightmares of British politics
From strikes to Brexit, a new book by the BBC producer Phil Tinline explores how the UK has been…
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Bob Stanley’s pre-history of pop breathes life into a lost musical era
In Let’s Do It, the musician and journalist reveals how ragtime, jazz, blues and swing still shape today’s popular…
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Geoff Dyer and the art of slacking off
The author’s workshy alter-egos made his books a delight. Now in sober late middle age, has the ultimate skiver…
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Ottessa Moshfegh and the tedium of depravity
The American author’s new novel of medieval brutality aims for the Marquis de Sade but ends up closer to…
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Reviewed in short: New books from Victor Sebestyen, Susan Jonusas, Howard Jacobson and Keiran Goddard
Budapest by Sebestyen, Hell’s Half Acre by Jonusas, Mother’s Boy by Jacobson and Hourglass by Goddard.
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Can Emma Raducanu survive her super-brand status?
After winning the US Open aged 18, Britain’s wunderkind has suffered a loss of form – but her honesty…
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Why Baz Luhrmann’s biopic fails to capture the real Elvis Presley
This conventional, sanitised version of the singer’s life is an endless highlight reel, with no room for the unsavoury…
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Back in Time for Birmingham tells the story of immigration in postwar Britain
For all its banalities, the BBC’s warm-hearted recreation of the lives of previous generations of British Asians is welcome,…
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How statistics mislead us
Anna Lawlor’s BBC Radio 4 show Typical! reveals how a poor grasp of means and modes skews our idea…
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There is a simple, sensual pleasure in eating with your hands
Even Debrett’s stipulates that “at an informal gathering it is fine to eat a chicken wing or spare rib…
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For the first time in my professional life, I am defeated by a book
I have a reputation for being welcoming of unconventional novels, but this one proved too much even for me.
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This England: Hot-hoofing it
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
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Subscriber of the Week: Gaël Lescot
Please email ellys.woodhouse@newstatesman.co.uk if you would like to be featured.
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Suzie Sheehy’s Q&A: “Australia’s regressive stance on climate is embarrassing”
The physicist on why Jocelyn Bell Burnell is an inspiration and the importance of investing in your own happiness.
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