In this week’s New Statesman, ahead of the historic first round of Egypt’s parliamentary elections on 28 November, LSE professor Fawaz Gerges profiles the Muslim Brotherhood — the Islamist group feared and reviled by the west that aims to win 40 per cent of seats and reshape post-Mubarak Egypt.
Elsewhere in the magazine, Jon Bernstein speaks to Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks about anti-Zionism, the dangers of the internet and wealth inequality. In the NS Diary, Mail columnist Simon Heffer defends his use of the phrase Fourth Reich (“Thanks to Germany, we have just witnessed coups d’état in two European countries”), and following Hugh Grant‘s testimony to the Leveson inquiry, Helen Lewis-Hasteley wonders how much lower the paparazzi can go.
Also this week, economics editor David Blanchflower charts the growing crisis of youth joblessness, Rafael Behr argues that Osborne’s excuses are wearing thin, and in the Letter from Washington, Ben Smith considers the two basic views of Mitt Romney: that he can’t win and that he can’t lose the GOP bid to take on Obama.
All this plus a love letter to Björk penned by Toby Litt, Stefan Collini pays tribute to the virtues of Lionel Trilling, Nina Caplan on our enduring fascination with coffee and the NS publishes for the first time a “lost” poem of Wendy Cope‘s from 1978.