My week started in Edinburgh, though not for the Fringe. I was in town to see – name-drop clang – Gordon Brown over the Firth of Forth in Fife (a sentence that will surely remind readers of a certain age of that score line that can never be beaten: East Fife 4, Forfar 5). I have taken to calling Gordon – or “Broon” as he is known affectionately by some north of the border – the New Statesman’s promising cub reporter. At 75, he seems to have more energy than I do, despite my 30-odd years’ advantage. One day I will have to ask him his secret. He doesn’t seem an electrolytes-and-meditation kind of guy. Maybe my diet of black coffee and toast really will power me through this life.
Anyway, there he was, in the place he has called home for almost the time I have been alive: still working on the great challenges facing the country, still looking for solutions, still seemingly reading everything under the sun. His bookshelves heave under the weight of the latest works of history, economics, biography – the lot. When I saw him, he had just finished reading David Kynaston’s latest account of postwar Britain, Deep into the Sixties: Britain 1965-66 (Tales of a New Jerusalem). You will be able to read his review in the pages of the New Statesman soon…
How glorious it was to venture up to the far enough north to escape the furnace of south-east England. Am I alone in starting to find this summer’s heatwaves a little disconcerting? The sheer intensity and persistence of them is unprecedented. I realise nostalgia is a seductive liar, but I cannot remember anything like this from my childhood. I have memories of playing football on the green all day long and becoming giddy in the heat. But I also remember the piles of grass left in clumps by the lawnmowers as we did so. Looking at the parks near me today, there’s no grass left to cut.
On the flight back from Edinburgh, I gazed out of the window at the landscape below. We were over the Wash and the familiar field patterns spread out as far as I could see: the patchwork of England. In one sense, then, the scene was utterly familiar: a scene of home. And yet, it was also completely changed – a desert assortment of bone-dry yellow and brown, a burnt landscape. Suddenly I had one of those sensations of being in a disaster film, the music blaring out of my earphones as we flew over some kind of natural calamity below.
I do not mean to catastrophise. It is the feeling of unease I am trying to convey: the sense of something having distinctly changed and the little thought somewhere in the back of one’s mind that it is not entirely clear where this is all going.
The week then finished with the tragic news of Jason Arday’s death and the outpouring of love, recrimination and reflection that has followed. Much has been said – and, no doubt, much more will continue to be said. But, as Rowan Williams writes, one of the most upsetting elements of the story is the sense that Arday had concluded there was no way back; that, as Williams puts it, we have a culture of criticism, but not of redemption.
This week’s edition is a two-week special, which we hope will see you through to the next magazine on 4 September – just in time for the party conference season (stop cheering so excitedly at the back). Once upon a time, this period in the political calendar was a relatively constrained affair, lasting just long enough for those of us who were unfortunate enough to have to attend them all to fall down with the dreaded “conference cold”. Now, though, it starts with the Reform conference in early September, before the Lib Dems, Labour, Greens and, eventually, the Conservatives a month later. And that’s not even taking account of the SNP’s annual gathering halfway through October.
What I am trying to say here is enjoy the summer while it is still around. Before you know it, the next edition of the magazine will have landed and British politics will be back in full swing. The weather will have cooled, but the politics will only just be heating up. And with that, adieu. Enjoy your holidays and see you on the other side.
Further reading: [Count Binface’s final stand]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 20 Aug 2026 issue of the New Statesman, Summer Special
Join the debate
Subscribe here to comment