Letter of the week: The hope for change
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ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
Going Under
Leader: The unworthy Boris Johnson
Why our shameless Prime Minister is merely a symptom, not the cause, of the UK’s degeneration.
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Prince Andrew and the false memory wars
The claim that sexual assault victims may be mistaken about their memories has become a political and scientific battleground.
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John Simpson’s Diary: In Afghanistan food is scarce, poverty is spreading and fear is everywhere
The full savagery of the old Taliban hasn’t returned. But sanctions are causing immense suffering.
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“We cannot adjudicate on the cause of someone’s death”: Chief statistician Ian Diamond on counting the cost of Covid-19
When the pandemic hit, the head of the Office for National Statistics became one of the most influential officials…
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Theresa May’s Commons attack on Boris Johnson shows revenge in politics is a sweet vindication
The offences against decency that Boris Johnson commits stain the body politic. The Tory party must now act.
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Putin’s aim is unchanged: to destroy the Ukrainian state, or turn it into a failed one
The Russian president is tired of waiting, so his game of blackmail may soon take a deadlier turn.
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Joe Rogan captures the American mood, whether liberals like it or not
Rogan’s skill for channeling popular sentiment is one that his critics – notably Harry and Meghan – conspicuously lack.
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The past is not a guide to the future, but remembering is still a vital act of defiance
Giving tours of parliament used to remind me of history's biggest lesson: most people don’t learn from history.
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Why Boris Johnson is beyond saving
As the Prime Minister was hosting parties, I was burying my father. How can a premier who inspires such…
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China doesn’t just want to be part of the global order – it wants to shape it
As the Winter Olympics begin in Beijing amid growing geopolitical tension, Xi Jinping's message is clear: the days of…
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Will Kate Forbes be Scotland’s next leader?
At 31, the SNP finance minister is tipped to succeed Nicola Sturgeon. But will her social conservatism and evangelical…
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1922: the year that made modernism
Ulysses, “The Waste Land”, Jacob’s Room: a year of radical experiments changed the course of literature.
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The NS Poem: The Girl
A new poem by Genevieve Stevens.
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How Nigel Farage became king of the trolls
From his Dulwich days to the EU referendum, the man who made Brexit has always been a lone provocateur.
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Can Europe tame pandemonium?
Covid-19 brought the EU together — the crisis in Ukraine may now tear it apart.
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Reviewed in Short: New titles by James Hamilton, Xochitl Gonzalez, Ben Rawlence, and Gulbahar Haitiwaji and Rozenn Morgat
Constable: A Portrait by Hamilton, Olga Dies Dreaming by Gonzalez, The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of…
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The enduring chill of Schubert’s Winterreise
A work ahead of its time, the composer's great song cycle meditates on all our disappointments.
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Francis Bacon at the Royal Academy: visceral visions of man and beast
A new retrospective shows how the ruthless painter captured our animal instincts.
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Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir Part II lacks the toxic glamour of the original
This was always intended to be a film in two parts, but the second installment, a Bildungsroman, is a…
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Pam + Tommy reminds me of porn: it’s boring, lifeless and full of erect nipples
Yes, this Disney+ series features a huge, animatronic penis. But why was it made? What’s it for?
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Marian Keyes and Tara Flynn provide warmth and wisdom in Now You’re Asking
This agenda-free agony aunt podcast doesn’t set out to change the world – and therein lies its charm.
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Why we should not blindly rush back to the way of life we consider “normal”
A marvellous new book about the Isle of Mull brought to my attention the opportunities for ecological reflection that…
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It can’t schmooze GPs, so Big Pharma targets patients and politicians instead
Only doctors at the end of their careers can recall the lavish lunches, the balloon trips, the conferences at…
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I’m not drinking and I can’t sleep. I wonder: am I living my best life?
This question prodded an existential nerve for two sober nights in a row, and I didn't like the answers…
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Up at 5.30am to file my tax return, I find a sort of diary in my spending
Trawling through a tax-year’s worth of bank statements shows me how what I choose to invest myself in has…
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This England: Too hard to handle
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: Marion Jochmans
Email ellys.woodhouse@newstatesman.co.uk if you would like to be the New Statesman's Subscriber of the Week.
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Susan Golombok Q&A: “People often say the family is doomed. I disagree”
The Glaswegian academic on Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain, her estranged grandfather, and new kinds of family.
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