This week’s New Statesman is a special issue devoted to the world’s most dangerous country — Pakistan. In our lead essay, William Dalrymple looks at how the country’s history of nurturing jihadis as a means of survival is beginning to backfire.
Elsewhere, Fatima Bhutto denounces Pakistan’s political elite for abandoning the nation in its hour of need and Samira Shackle reports from Bradford on the uncertain future facing the city’s Mirpuri community.
Also, don’t miss a revealing interview with Imran Khan and an exclusive short story from Aamer Hussein.
In British politics, the Labour leadership candidate Ed Miliband tells Jason Cowley and Mehdi Hasan that he won’t be defined by the right-wing press and reveals, for the first time, that he would never work with Nick Clegg. Meanwhile, ahead of this weekend’s Australian election, the Labour MP Caroline Flint asks why Britain has no Julia Gillard of its own.
All this, plus John Pilger on why we must defend WikiLeaks, David Blanchflower on the growing risk of a double-dip recession and Maurice Glasman on how the Tories stole Labour’s language.