Britain deserves better in 2024
A Labour government would change the social atmosphere for the better and offer the hope of a new start.
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
Christmas Special
Letter of the week: The Jewish left will continue
Write to letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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Robert Jenrick furthers his own migration to the upper Tory ranks
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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Democracy in the era of deepfakes
In October a fabricated clip of Keir Starmer swearing at staff was shared. Imagine the impact if it had…
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The hypocrisy of Rishi’s Right
Also this week: the power of the Nativity, and why books are like batteries.
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Hana Videen: “It’s a pretty silly idea that there’s a pure English”
The author on the evolution of language.
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The Tories are split into three camps and a shadow leadership contest is under way
Heading into an election year, the Conservative Party is in a dismal state – and Rishi Sunak is in…
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Amid multiple crises, EU leaders cling to a misplaced optimism
Economic turmoil is on the horizon – the scariest of all outcomes for Europe would be a Trump victory.
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Across Europe, far-right parties are rising
As the continent undergoes a rightwards shift, the liberal dream of open borders is dying.
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Writing for children is hard, and they need good books more than ever
Children are ravenously hungry for ideas. We writers have a duty to provide them.
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Israelis and Palestinians have been taken back to the traumas of 1948
Reporting from the front line in Gaza, I have seen the destruction wrought on all sides by this long…
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This Christmas, it is hard to watch as our ancestral lands fragment
Israelis, Palestinians, Ukrainians and Armenians around the world have had to witness horrifying events from afar.
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To keep winning, sports teams must fix what isn’t broken
Even harder than achieving success is continuing to achieve.
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My reckoning with charismatic Christianity
There is an emptiness that the Church says only God can fill. But is He there?
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In 2024, Labour must offer hope
If all Keir Starmer’s party promises is a second age of austerity, voters will soon abandon it.
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The secrets of frost
Frost doesn’t merely transform our surroundings – it alters the kind of attention we pay to the world.
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Kate Forbes: The rooted nomad
Will Kate Forbes ultimately be forced to choose between politics and God?
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The new world disorder
A new binary of opposing powers has emerged, with the forces of chaos ranged against the West.
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Dispatches from the land of Long Covid
My search for a cure took me into the strange waters of wellness.
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To catch a catfish
How one detective took on an international network of romance fraudsters.
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A bluffer’s guide to rural politics
Initially a reluctant candidate for a Herefordshire Council seat, I discovered the camaraderie, conflict and thrill of local elections.
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On being the writer in the family
Writers exploit and rebel against their parents – but can never escape them.
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Joseph Roth’s lessons for Putin’s Russia
A century ago The Radetzky March captured the break-up of Austria-Hungary. Could it also predict the fall of Vladimir…
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What video games taught me
A collection of essays on gaming confirms the rich complexity of an art form that remains widely misunderstood.
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The visions of Werner Herzog
In creating wild and strange new worlds, the German film-maker reveals the truth of our own.
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Inside the erotic mind
Psychoanalyst Darian Leader’s study of the motivations behind sex and desire is irredeemably bonkers.
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What it means to be German
Frank Trentmann’s history reveals how modern Germany found a new moral purpose after the horrors of Nazism.
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The best children’s books for Christmas 2023
There’s fantasy, folklore and friendship in the best new books for young readers.
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Lexicon of loss
The history of the elegy reveals how the poetry of grief has the power to trouble, console and unite.
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The NS Poem: Sabotage
A new poem by Rebecca Farmer.
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The 20 best books of 2023
Our choice of the year’s essential fiction and non-fiction.
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Christmas in Hamburg
At the city’s festive markets shopping is not the objective: it is to meet friends and sip Glühwein.
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Matthew Ball’s cerebral ballet
The Royal Ballet principal on embracing pain, bringing the unconscious to the stage, and the dance world after #MeToo.
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Inside Elvis’s dollhouse
Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla Presley biopic shows how the singer groomed his teenage wife – but his obsession with young…
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Notes on trying
For readers and writers, novels require enormous effort. Why do we persist in seeking meaning in their pages?
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Maruyama Ōkyo: artist of the frozen world
The 18th-century Japanese painter learned lessons from Western art and used them more daringly than any European.
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Timothée Chalamet is a sweeter – but weaker – Wonka
The Warner Bros origin story for the chocolatier adds songs and removes nastiness from Roald Dahl’s tale – for…
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A strange and intimate Ghost Story
This podcast mixes true crime, family history and the paranormal – to intriguing effect.
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The 20 best films and TV shows of 2023
Our choice of the year’s essential screen entertainment.
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The bird that wasn’t there
Soon after the Bay thrush was discovered in 1774, it was lost. But we can no longer blame ignorance…
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Can podcasts and acupressure get me through the icy winter months?
Perhaps the level of well-being we all seek is incompatible with being human.
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At its midpoint, this season is shaping up to be one of football’s oddest
So far we’ve seen Dickensian midfielders, a blizzard of coaching jobs, and the return of peep-hole socks.
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Cooking for others gives me purpose. That doesn’t mean I enjoy it
You know why chefs are skinny and have explosive tempers? Because their mothers try to help them in the…
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Subscriber of the Week: Jack Frost
Please email zuzanna.lachendro@newstatesman.co.uk if you would like to be featured.
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This England: Puffed-up pastry
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
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Judi Dench’s Q&A: “Shakespeare’s rhythms are the beating of my heart”
The actor on Jennie Lee, Elizabeth Fry and her annoyance at those who throw away food on the sell-by…
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