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Society
Michael Foot v the New Statesman
- 17 July 2008
- 2 comments
In 1978 Bruce Page, the editor of the New Statesman, reprinted extracts from a stirring speech made by Michael Foot as a Labour rebel in 1968. Foot's criticisms contrasted starkly with his position a decade later - as a leading member of the Labour government - on its economic policy. Foot sent a vituperative letter in his own defence, printed the following week. It ended with a flick of contempt at a staff journalist, Christopher Hitchens, who responded similarly.
Education
On summer schools
- 03 July 2008
Throughout the US and UK, the summer school was a distinctive feature of the progressive age before the Great War. The spirit of those optimistic times is well conveyed in this article, written anonymously for the New Statesman (but possibly by S K Ratcliffe) during the first year of the magazine's life. The Chautauqua Institution in New York State described was founded in 1874, and still holds nine weeks of educational and cultural activities every summer. Selected by Robert Taylor
Society
Vaughan Williams
- 26 June 2008
- 1 comment
Ralph Vaughan Williams was one of England's greatest 20th-century composers: his Lark Ascending was recently voted the nation's favourite piece of music. Much of Vaughan Williams's output was influenced by the English folk music tradition, but his finest works - according to the New Statesman's music critic at the time of his death 50 years ago - were his Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, which very much reflected the spirit of his age
Society
Pamphlet literature
- 19 June 2008
By 1943, George Orwell had become an infrequent contributor to the New Statesman. A quarrel with the magazine's editor, Kingsley Martin, over his anti-Stalinist but left-wing stance during the Spanish Civil War had led to the suppression of some of his articles. In this rare appearance in the Statesman's pages, Orwell argued that the time was ripe for the flowering of political pamphlets, but although many were being published most were little more than rubbish.
Society
Labour and the middle classes
- 12 June 2008
In 1945, Labour won the general election as a political party that appealed to the whole nation - including the "useful" middle classes - and not just manual workers. Three years later, Maurice Edelman, Labour MP for Coventry West and a regular contributor to this magazine, described how the party had to hold the loyalties of managers, technicians and scientists and others who had voted for it in 1945 if it hoped to win the next general election.
Society
From “who governs” to “how to survive”
- 05 June 2008
John Berger, the cultural critic and Marxist radical, was this magazine's art correspondent during the 1950s. Thirty years later, he contributed this insightful essay on the crisis of the public intellectual in Europe. He argued that the insatiable demands of consumerism, and the dominance of advertising and public relations in political as well as cultural life, were overwhelming the more subtle and valuable tradition of intellectualism
Society
Burma's socialist road
- 29 May 2008
- 1 comment
Ever since independence was declared 60 years ago, Burma has been an insular country. In recent years, and especially in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, the ruling military dictatorship has attracted harsh criticism for its isolationist and brutally repressive policies. But in 1968, Dorothy Woodman, the New Statesman’s Asia correspondent, wrote in support of Burma’s efforts to remain non-aligned and what she saw as a genuine determination to create a socialist society.
Society
On the battlefield
- 22 May 2008
The tumult and destruction caused by the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago ensured that the event remains a milestone not just in the history of the party, but in the history of US politics. Young activists descended on the city to protest against the Vietnam War, but their demonstrations were suppressed by the Chicago police with shocking brutality. This eyewitness account recalls the horrors of a time that has never been forgotten.
