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Throughout the pandemic, glimmers of a better society pierced the gloom.
A selection of the best letters received from our readers this week. Email letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
The public have been reassured by the deputy chief medical officer's folksy analogies and "Mum test".
It's difficult to remember anything about this year apart from the pandemic, except that Succession served as a good escape.
As Covid-19 prompted life to move online and distance mattered less, globalisation was not reversed but recast.
Inequalities run deep in the US, but protests across the world prove the political power of collective action.
Trump's indifference towards Covid-19 is a near-perfect echo of the handling of HIV/Aids under Ronald Reagan.
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at the downfall of Dominic Cummings. The eye test! The “Nasa-style control room”!
The left's historic obsession with conveying a "vision" is a vapid distraction that needs to be ignored.
In the year of the pandemic, I decided a not-quite-right Christmas seems sadder than its entire absence.
As senior Republicans stand by, the president is creating the conditions for a shiny new republic of riddles.
During lockdown, virtual darts matches and classic rugby league games on YouTube became an antidote to daily news bulletins. And I even started running.
The year of lockdowns and remote working may seem like a blur – but one cognitive psychologist explains why remembering the pandemic may not be all bad.
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
The British psychotherapist discusses her person-centred approach to therapy and facing grief in an age of crisis.
I am unable to stop my mind racing with worries, from Pfizer side-effects to post-Brexit transport blockages.
Covid-19 has pricked the bubble of human supremacy and revealed our fragility. And the economic destruction means we cannot return to the free-market capitalism that made the pandemic inevitable.
The New Statesman’s medical columnist describes his experiences as a GP in the face of Covid-19, as a rumour grew to a distant threat and then to the remarkable challenge of a global pandemic
I am left feeling unnerved by the sudden presence of a bird wreathed in superstition and legend at my kitchen window.
Orwell wrote Animal Farm at a time of global crisis as a warning about oppressive state power. Its message is as relevant as ever, says the New Statesman editor in a new introduction to the seminal book.
When I was ten, Snow White got into a fight with my mother and hit her. We were at Disneyland Paris, queueing for a hot dog.
The New Atheists hardened the idea that the two world-views are locked in opposition – but a new breed of scientists has found fertile ground at the border between fact and faith.
The British illustrator’s provocative, ink-splattered images – some of which, taken from a major new book, are published here – are informed by his philosophy: “There is no such thing as a mistake. A mistake is an opportunity to do something else.”
Graham Greene was the consummate literary professional. But a new biography shows how profound mental instability shaped his chaotic private life.
Sedaris' The Best of Me, Atwood's Dearly, Dale's The Prime Ministers and Believe in Magic by Turner.
Between the wars, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Ernst Cassirer and Walter Benjamin sought to transform the world by giving it their total attention – a lesson that still resonates 100 years on.
Two new poems by Alison Brackenbury.
The story of our culinary landscape is one of changing tastes and widening inequality.
A new poem by Ben Wilkinson
Thanks to his good humour and hard work, football fans fell in love with the not-so-cool but incredibly dedicated guy from the Black Forest.
Dara McAnulty's Diary of a Young Naturalist is written in tumbling, intelligent, young prose that rolls quickly through the year.
The unorthodox philosophy that transformed a struggling mail-order DVD company into one of the tech industry’s great powers.
In a difficult year, let's give children the best and most cheering books.
A new short story by leading British thriller writer Lawrence Osborne.
I’ve had a copy of this photo of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon on my desk for years. When I got married, I dug it out.
Is it only because this is a photograph of my mother that I feel protective of it?
I was about five when this picture was taken, and already getting too big for my bird costume.
Your eyes do not deceive: Elvis Presley buys lunch from a platform vendor.
A new poem by the International Booker Prize winner, written in response to Curtis Parratt’s photo “Fall (5)”.
No photo in my writing room is quite as poignant as this one of Bhutto, taken on 27 December 2007. Less than an hour later, she would be dead.
Here is a picture of my grandmother, Grace, with the only child she gave birth to.
The godmother of rock’n’roll is my role model for middle age, old age and any age.
When I was four, my dad left because my mother had an affair with the milkman. I remember my dad's bike leaning against the wall of our council house.
Here she is, squatting down, head cocked, birdlike, to listen to a small girl.
My council flat became a source of shame – but the boy in this photograph knows nothing of that feeling.
The musician on being misunderstood, playing ping pong and why her songs aren't about her.
The bestselling author reflects on her difficult childhood, meeting her wife and taking on the smug, middle-class world of children’s fiction.
A refugee displaced by the First World War, de Saedeleer found both home and inspiration in the valleys of Aberystwyth.
Though most aren’t showing in cinemas, a handful of streaming releases try to make the season bright.
The highs and lows of festive viewing, from Regency drama to TV’s crummiest game show.
New Statesman critic Ryan Gilbey chooses his top movies of the year.
New Statesman critic Rachel Cooke chooses her top programmes of the year.
The audio highlights of the festive season.
It's going to be a strange festive period for most, so indulge with a dinner of stollen, boozy mince pies and pigs in blankets.
Christmas involves a temporary reinsertion into the family home, and this year I'll have a four-legged friend sharing the sofa.
This year more than ever we'll all be doing a lot of muddling through, and hanging on stoically for better times ahead.
Plus as the stadiums stood silent, lots of well-loved commentary clichés have kept us amusingly distracted.
Email emily.bootle@newstatesman.co.uk if you would like to be the New Statesman's Subscriber of the Week.
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain – has run in the NS since 1934.
The musician discusses the Second World War fighter pilot Douglas Bader, Winston Churchill and The Great British Bake Off.
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