Leader: We should never forget Arthur Labinjo-Hughes
Arthur’s suffering was sustained and exacerbated by lockdown, which has created a generation of “ghost children” who are lost…
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
Christmas Special
Letters
Email letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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Jason Cowley book: Who Are We Now? Stories of Modern England
The English Question: more than ever we need stories that help us make sense of the world.
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What my vegetable box supplier could teach politicians about the value of honesty
With admirable frankness my grocer writes on everything from her neighbours to current affairs. If only the government would…
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As my wedding day approaches, I wonder: what is the point of getting married?
Our life won't change in any meaningful way because we've signed a piece of paper – we'll continue to…
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Labour still looks like a conventional party, and is betting on politics as it once was
Now that Keir Starmer has drawn together a strong shadow cabinet, a government led by Labour could be closer…
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Kamala Harris is flailing. Is it too late for her to recover?
If the vice-president is failing to meet her targets, then some fault lies with the man setting them.
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Historians have become soft targets in the culture wars. We should fight back
The “rewriting of history” is not some act of professional misconduct but literally the job of professional historians.
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My return to reading, the white working class, and an adieu to Rosemary Bechler
The issues of democracy and nationalism have never felt so urgent.
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Australia’s draconian streak means that it is struggling to find the Covid exit lane
A zero-Covid strategy can come at the expense of basic human decency.
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Could Valérie Pécresse be France’s first female president?
The woman who styles herself as “two-thirds Merkel, one-third Thatcher” could pose a serious threat to Macron's chances of…
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Ian Hislop’s Diary: Carolling with the Monkees, sherry with the vicar, and the true meaning of Christmas
’Tis the season for gift giving and – just like vaccinations – I am recommending everyone gets three Private…
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Michael Wolff: “Donald Trump is stone stupid, literally crazy”
The journalist, biographer and White House chronicler on why we still can’t count the former president out.
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Commons Confidential: Labour’s triumph lights up No 10
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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How the battle against Covid became a forever war
Many predicted the virus would become a mild illness akin to a common cold. But as the Omicron variant…
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Richard Dawkins interview: “What I say in biology has become pretty much orthodoxy”
At 80, the evolutionary scientist and atheist still courts controversy. Will his influence survive a passion for social media?
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George Orwell outside the whale
What the writer teaches us about politics and the imagination in a time of crisis.
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In another pandemic winter, the lure of hibernation is stronger than ever
I thought that I could retreat from the world outside, like a hedgehog or ladybird. But after Covid we…
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Letter from Germany: A train journey through Prussia’s heartlands
The not-quite vanished state is central to the history of Europe. Riding the RE1 train from Brandenburg to the…
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Inside the UK hotel that became home to 150 refugees
The Koofi family were airlifted to safety in August 2021. This is their story – and that of thousands…
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Poison pens: A selection of the finest political satire
Brexit havoc, Tory sleaze and the brutal reality of Covid restrictions; the events of 2020-21 have provided colourful fodder…
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Personal story: Christmas with my family’s therapist
Spending this much time with relatives is a fundamentally doomed exercise. Mine have developed a ritual to cope.
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Knowing patients well can be life-saving. But family GPs like me fear our days are numbered
Continuity of care has been eroded in favour of "taxi-rank" medicine, where few people know their GP. Can that…
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What Dostoevsky knew about evil
The great Russian writer was no saint. But 200 years after his birth, his work shows how we might…
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Patricia Highsmith’s many vices
The thriller writer’s journals record her vast appetite for sex, drink, violence and – above all – work.
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The NS Poem: The Path
A new poem by Will Eaves.
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The New Statesman’s best books of 2021
The year's essential reading in 20 titles.
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The best children’s books for Christmas 2021
There’s danger, delight and magic in the best children’s books of the festive season.
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Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob: an epic that sinks under the weight of facts
The Nobel winner’s novel about a religious cult in 18th-century eastern Europe suffers from an addiction to digression and…
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Reviewed in short: New books by Ai Weiwei, Elizabeth Strout, Colm Tóibín and Harvey Whitehouse
1,000 Years of Joys and Sorrows by Ai, Oh William! by Strout, The Magician by Tóibín and The Ritual…
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How The Matrix made us
In their 1999 film, the Wachowskis glimpsed the future of our digital lives. More remarkably, they shaped them.
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“True cinema trusts in images”: Elena Ferrante on Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter
The Italian novelist considers the new adaptation of her dark seaside tale.
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The nostalgic American winters of Dale Nichols
For the Nebraskan painter, the soul of the nation lay in the Midwest of his boyhood.
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Steven Spielberg’s sunny take on West Side Story
This is the highlight of what’s on at the movies this Christmas – but musical-averse audiences do have other…
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The highs (and lows) of festive TV
From Around the World in 80 Days to A Very British Scandal.
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BBC Radio 4’s Howl’s Moving Castle is pure escapist wizardry
How does one translate the weirdness and wonder of fantasy into accessible drama? Like this.
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Nutmeg, the ultimate Christmas spice, has a dark and intoxicating history
The unassuming brown seed was as much a pawn in the colonial game as the precious stones of the…
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Do we need a multi-sensory “experience” to make this Christmas perfect?
It makes me feel 100 years old to be complaining about the season’s over-commercialisation, but isn’t it really about…
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Now I have had my ears syringed I am waiting for an upswing in my quality of life
I braced myself for a Shrek-like abundance of earwax, “There doesn’t seem to be much there,” the nurse said,…
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After six months of public grief, I can admit it: I still miss him
I think this is the bravest thing I have written, because it is also the most foolish.
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This England: Mouse gap
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
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The sack race, self-pity and Smith Rowe’s pudding bowl: the Prem season so far
Every half-decent goal is world-class. A goalie is world-class after a simple save. Even throw-ins can be world-class.
ByThe NS Christmas Geographical Crossword
The solutions to Anorak's Christmas 2021 crossword on an alphabetical theme.
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Subscriber of the Week: Ebenezer Scrooge
Email ellys.woodhouse@newstatesman.co.uk if you would like to be the New Statesman’s Subscriber of the Week.
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Bill Bailey Q&A: “My earliest memory is the smell of nylon waterproofs in a hot car”
The comedian on Suleiman the Magnificent, Starsky and Hutch and why he should have been a town crier.
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