Personal Story: How I learned to exist as prey
With a stranger’s throwaway comment, my entire connection to the natural world had been recalibrated.
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Power without purpose
The young Iraqis fighting for a modern, independent nation
For decades the country has been brutalised by dictatorship, war, corruption and unemployment. Now Iraq’s young people are risking…
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Power without purpose: how the Tories don’t have a national plan
The Conservatives are dominant but their plans are contradictory, seeking to fuse a shallow tech utopianism with national populism.
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In praise of history’s difficult women
The story of the fight for gender quality is littered with unlikeable feminists. But do we need to like…
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An alternative Middle East
In 1979 the forces that have left the Islamic world in chaos were unleashed – but it didn’t have…
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Sophy Roberts’s The Lost Pianos of Siberia: a quest in search of music and history
In her richly observed cultural history, Roberts tracks down the stories behind Siberia’s most socially significant pianos.
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John Bercow’s Unspeakable: an unsatisfying memoir
This is not a memoir for anyone looking for a lengthy statement of values or a fly-on-the-wall account of…
By
Jeet Thayil’s Low: mourning, Mumbai and drugs
In his third novel, Thayil turns his attention to the “New India” of Hindu nationalism and high-rise luxury apartments.
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Anne Enright’s Actress: a plodding, clichéd story
Enright’s new novel about the daughter of an actress finds itself in a biographical straitjacket.
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Emmanuel Carrère: “I need to be honest about myself. Otherwise, why write?
The celebrated French writer Emmanuel Carrère on why he is drawn to monsters, murderers, enigmas – and himself.
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Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece and the many thefts of a masterpiece
The price for being the most famous painting in the world was that it also became the most stolen.…
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Anya Taylor-Joy’s Emma: a leisurely, inoffensive take on Austen
The latest in a long line of adaptations of Austen’s novel doesn’t attempt anything too radical.
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Following Wordsworth’s footsteps
A new BBC Radio 4 show about the poet is incredibly dense and atmospheric.
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BBC One’s The Split is more than just melodrama
Beneath its soapy subplots and shiny locations lies something far messier.
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Gerald Barry’s take on Alice in Wonderland proves that opera is still alive and awake
Alice’s Adventures Under Ground has vitality, inventiveness and – as Barry likes to insist – tunes coming out of its…
ByLetter of the week: Listen and learn
A selection of the best letters received from our readers this week. Email letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced…
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Leader: Britain’s railways and the common good
The farcical arrangement of our rail network is symptomatic of the weaknesses of Britain’s economic model.
By
Brexit could limit our access to foreign drinks – but then again, wine has a knack for surviving catastrophe
Our divorce from the EU will leave us, like characters in a Dantean parable, lapping frantically at a lake of English…
By
I may be right about the “new Beatles”, but I got it wrong with the beetroot hummus
The moral of the story is this: look at the menu carefully before ordering.
By
I’ve never been a patient person – but in January, I had to get comfortable with waiting
Faced with a health scare, I couldn’t believe how angry I felt at being powerless.
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Michael Morpurgo Q&A: “I could have been George Clooney“
The author talks re-runs of Would I Lie To You?, Clement Attlee and getting advice from Ted Hughes.
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Yes, coronavirus kills, but it could also bring the NHS to a standstill
Imagine swine flu-levels of population panic plus a virus capable of causing millions of hospitalisations, overlaid on an NHS…
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Mary Lou McDonald and the changing face of Sinn Féin
How Irish politics has been transformed.
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Coronavirus and the role of the “super spreader”
How one person can accelerate a pandemic.
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First Thoughts: The appealing dullness of Keir Starmer, HS2 and England’s mistreatment of Jofra Archer
After five years of Boris Johnson’s comically ill-conceived projects, voters will want unflamboyant competence.
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Thomas Piketty: “There will be another economic crash”
The French economist and author of Capital and Ideology on Brexit, Labour’s defeat and the next crisis.
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Commons Confidential: Clive Lewis and the stale panettone
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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Why the SNP continues to survive political scandal
For the majority of Scottish nationalists, independence is a goal that overrides all failures.
By
I’m average at almost everything – but there’s nothing admirable about walking the moral median
Would I have followed the moral norms of a hundred years ago?
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How London Loo Codes are enabling you to use café toilets without buying a £3 coffee
The account tweets out the combination codes for cubicles across the capital.
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Labour faces many of the same challenges as Europe’s centre left – and some that are all of its own
The party is peculiarly contaminated by the legacy of abandoning its Leave voters and by a leader many voters…
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David Hare’s Diary: Defending the BBC, why the Arts Council is a laughing stock and spy talk with le Carré
You may argue the corporation got its election mix wrong, but you cannot deny it is the broadest free-speech…
By
The future of German politics rests on a defining question: after Angela Merkel, what next?
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has resigned as CDU leader, destroying the chancellor’s carefully laid succession plan.
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Editor’s Note: The Great Railways Debacle – and why Britain has no plan or national story to speak of
No other major Western country has allowed so many of its strategic industries, assets and pre-eminent companies to fall…
By
The government lacks energy and a coherent plan. So, is no plan the plan, or is something else going on?
Tory MPs fear that the party’s ideologically incoherent December manifesto was not just for Christmas but for life.
By I’m average at almost everything – but there’s nothing admirable about walking the moral median
Would I have followed the moral norms of a hundred years ago?
By Jeet Thayil’s Low: mourning, Mumbai and drugs
In his third novel, Thayil turns his attention to the “New India” of Hindu nationalism and high-rise luxury apartments.
By How London Loo Codes are enabling you to use café toilets without buying a £3 coffee
The account tweets out the combination codes for cubicles across the capital.
By Anne Enright’s Actress: a plodding, clichéd story
Enright’s new novel about the daughter of an actress finds itself in a biographical straitjacket.
By Sophy Roberts’s The Lost Pianos of Siberia: a quest in search of music and history
In her richly observed cultural history, Roberts tracks down the stories behind Siberia’s most socially significant pianos.
By John Bercow’s Unspeakable: an unsatisfying memoir
This is not a memoir for anyone looking for a lengthy statement of values or a fly-on-the-wall account of…
By Labour faces many of the same challenges as Europe’s centre left – and some that are all of its own
The party is peculiarly contaminated by the legacy of abandoning its Leave voters and by a leader many voters…
By David Hare’s Diary: Defending the BBC, why the Arts Council is a laughing stock and spy talk with le Carré
You may argue the corporation got its election mix wrong, but you cannot deny it is the broadest free-speech…
By The future of German politics rests on a defining question: after Angela Merkel, what next?
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has resigned as CDU leader, destroying the chancellor’s carefully laid succession plan.
By Mary Lou McDonald and the changing face of Sinn Féin
How Irish politics has been transformed.
By Coronavirus and the role of the “super spreader”
How one person can accelerate a pandemic.
By Following Wordsworth’s footsteps
A new BBC Radio 4 show about the poet is incredibly dense and atmospheric.
By First Thoughts: The appealing dullness of Keir Starmer, HS2 and England’s mistreatment of Jofra Archer
After five years of Boris Johnson’s comically ill-conceived projects, voters will want unflamboyant competence.
By BBC One’s The Split is more than just melodrama
Beneath its soapy subplots and shiny locations lies something far messier.
By Thomas Piketty: “There will be another economic crash”
The French economist and author of Capital and Ideology on Brexit, Labour’s defeat and the next crisis.
By Anya Taylor-Joy’s Emma: a leisurely, inoffensive take on Austen
The latest in a long line of adaptations of Austen’s novel doesn’t attempt anything too radical.
By Commons Confidential: Clive Lewis and the stale panettone
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
By Why the SNP continues to survive political scandal
For the majority of Scottish nationalists, independence is a goal that overrides all failures.
By I’ve never been a patient person – but in January, I had to get comfortable with waiting
Faced with a health scare, I couldn’t believe how angry I felt at being powerless.
ByLetter of the week: Listen and learn
A selection of the best letters received from our readers this week. Email letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced…
By Brexit could limit our access to foreign drinks – but then again, wine has a knack for surviving catastrophe
Our divorce from the EU will leave us, like characters in a Dantean parable, lapping frantically at a lake of English…
By I may be right about the “new Beatles”, but I got it wrong with the beetroot hummus
The moral of the story is this: look at the menu carefully before ordering.
By Yes, coronavirus kills, but it could also bring the NHS to a standstill
Imagine swine flu-levels of population panic plus a virus capable of causing millions of hospitalisations, overlaid on an NHS…
By Editor’s Note: The Great Railways Debacle – and why Britain has no plan or national story to speak of
No other major Western country has allowed so many of its strategic industries, assets and pre-eminent companies to fall…
By The government lacks energy and a coherent plan. So, is no plan the plan, or is something else going on?
Tory MPs fear that the party’s ideologically incoherent December manifesto was not just for Christmas but for life.
By Michael Morpurgo Q&A: “I could have been George Clooney“
The author talks re-runs of Would I Lie To You?, Clement Attlee and getting advice from Ted Hughes.
By Leader: Britain’s railways and the common good
The farcical arrangement of our rail network is symptomatic of the weaknesses of Britain’s economic model.
By Gerald Barry’s take on Alice in Wonderland proves that opera is still alive and awake
Alice’s Adventures Under Ground has vitality, inventiveness and – as Barry likes to insist – tunes coming out of its…
By