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23 December 2023

The best New Statesman interviews of 2023

Conversations with the people at the centre of this year’s biggest stories.

By New Statesman

The Reeves doctrine: Labour’s plan for power
By Jason Cowley
She is ready to be Britain’s first female chancellor. But will Rachel Reeves’s caution stifle her creativity?

Michael Parkinson – The last interview
By Kate Mossman
The late talk-show host on broadcasting’s halcyon days, car-crash interviews and today’s “charlatans in high office”.

Rory Stewart still doesn’t know who he is
By Will Lloyd
The politician-turned-podcaster is paying the price for his illusions.

Joanna Moncrieff: “I’m not convinced antidepressants have any use”
By Sophie McBain
The controversial psychiatrist on taking on the pharmaceutical firms, and how Covid made it “OK to cancel scientists”.

Tony Blair: “If I was back in front-line politics…”
By Andrew Marr
Labour’s former prime minister on the AI revolution, the curse of Brexit and what Keir Starmer must do to win.

Imran Khan: “I’m afraid Pakistan is headed towards martial law”
By Bruno Maçães
The country’s former prime minister warns that its spiralling political crisis could end as a brutal military dictatorship.

Kate Forbes: The rooted nomad
By Jason Cowley
Will Kate Forbes ultimately be forced to choose between politics and God?

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Mary Harrington: “Make sex consequential again”
By Sophie McBain
The journalist and author on what liberal feminism gets wrong.

Simon McDonald: “It’s the end of the game for Britain”
By Harry Lambert
The former head of the Foreign Office on the UK’s decline and how he brought down Boris Johnson.

Justin Welby: “It’s better to be woke than asleep”
By Kate Mossman
The Tories decry his interventions; others say he’s too conservative. Can the Archbishop of Canterbury unite a fraying Church?

Jon Lansman: what the left gets wrong about Israel
By George Eaton
The Momentum founder on his kibbutznik past and how progressives should respond to anti-Semitism.

Mary Beard: “Learning to think should be destabilising”
By Rachel Cunliffe
The historian on eviscerating Boris Johnson, making students cry, and why classics is “not just for posh people”.

Mariana Mazzucato: “Consultancies depend on weak governments”
By Megan Gibson
The economist and author of The Big Con reflects on why capitalism is broken.

Bret Easton Ellis: “Wokeness is running out of room”
By Will Lloyd
The Shards is the famously morbid author’s latest “trickster book”. He prefers cabinet shopping to culture wars now.

John Curtice on how the Tories are “stuffed”
By Anoosh Chakelian
Britain’s TV polling icon on spats with Labour, the UK reversing Brexit, and why the Union is “in trouble”.

Annie Ernaux’s acts of revenge
By Ellen Peirson-Hagger
The Nobel laureate on abortion, the “shame” of her upbringing and forging a new working-class literature.

Andrew Wylie’s rules for life
By Harry Lambert
America’s most feared literary agent on how he has thrived in the “land of the completely stupid”.

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