In this week’s New Statesman, leading political economist and crossbench peer Robert Skidelsky weighs in on the fate of the global economy, finding that a retreat to more self-sufficient models of growth is the only positive alternative to protectionism, collapse of the euro and trade wars. He writes that it could “already be too late to avoid a “double dip”, but it may still be possible to avoid a triple dip”, before outlining the collective political will necessary to do so.
Also this week, Mehdi Hasan reveals the coalition-proposed changes to the electoral registration system that would steal the next election for the Tories. Post-conference season, Rafael Behr reflects on the future of the three parties and asks whether Ed Miliband is unelectable but, infact, right, and David Blanchflower warns of the scale of the latest financial shock.
Meanwhile, literary biographer Claire Tomalin talks about her own life (for a change), Helen Lewis-Hasteley laments the missing female comics on TV and Dannie Abse offers a new poem in an anniversary tribute to his brother, the late equal rights campaigner and Labour MP Leo Abse.
All this plus actress and campaigner Harriet Walter on ageing, Peter Wilby on Amanda Knox and a Dickens book special courtesy of A N Wilson and Robert Douglas-Fairhurst.