The Lib Dems are love-bombing them, Labour are scared by them – the Greens are on the rise
How do you solve a problem like the Green Party? Their surge in support is giving all the parties…
ByNew Statesman Magazine
In this week’s magazine
Return of the Irish question
Yes, my phone can do everything but life is better with a watch, a book and a paper map
Who wears a watch now? There’s a Luddite stubbornness to their persistence when the smartphone has taken over their…
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First Thoughts: The rise of Lachlan Murdoch, a maverick headmaster and a day at the (amateur) races
No tactical voting for me. I shall support Labour in the European elections. The ambiguity of Jeremy Corbyn’s position…
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Jess Phillips’s Diary: Online abuse, a triumph for domestic violence victims and eating Quavers in the bath
It takes an awful lot of work to be abused. After the week I have had, being subject again…
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So Nigel Farage hates the BBC’s tough questions? What a snowflake
Last week I found myself in a tent in the Oxfordshire countryside, talking about the art of the political…
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Lindsay Hoyle: “Westminster is a tinderbox ready to explode”
Nothing captures Westminster’s imagination like a contest for a job opening that doesn’t yet exist. Just ask any of…
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Why three viewings of Avengers: Endgame was nine hours well spent
Five hundred and forty three minutes. Nine hours. It’s around the time it would take you to fly from…
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Commons Confidential: Gavin Williamson’s whispers
Fireplace salesman Gavin Williamson deserved to be sacked for what he confessed to telling a Daily Torygraph journalist during…
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The US-China trade war is another sign that protectionism is here to stay
In its most recent economic and fiscal outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the two greatest potential…
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Netflix’s Wine Country: a loose, meandering road trip flick
There hasn’t been a mainstream American comedy as perfect as Bridesmaids since, well, Bridesmaids. The 2011 film about a…
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The Young Vic’s Death of a Salesman is a fresh take on a familiar story
Is there a greater wasted opportunity in theatre than the character of Linda Loman played deadly straight? It used…
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Sandra Newman’s The Heavens is a rich and strange novel of time-travel and star-crossed lovers
Sandra Newman’s new novel seems at first glance to be a marketing department’s dream – star-crossed lovers! Time travel!…
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Russell T Davies’s Years and Years is bold and brilliant
Russell T Davies has said that his new series, Years and Years, is hard to describe succinctly, and that this…
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When maths goes wrong
One million, one billion, one trillion. Humans are not good at judging the size of large numbers and don’t…
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Birds of Passage: a dreamlike Colombian thriller
Do you wanna yonna? That’s the question at the start of Birds of Passage, as Zaida (Natalia Reyes) emerges…
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England’s private and inaccessible countryside
Some years ago, deep in the process of writing a novel, At Hawthorn Time, I decided to walk a…
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Jeanette Winterson Q&A: “I couldn’t live without books and an open fire“
Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester in 1959 and raised by adoptive Pentecostal parents. When she came out as…
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At a match in France, I was reminded that football fans can fit in anywhere
The last time I was at a football match in France was in 1971 when Spurs were playing Nantes…
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To jab or not to jab? The way to combat the anti-vaxxers is through evidence not coercion
In 1998, the Lancet published controversial research by Andrew Wakefield that suggested a link between combined measles, mumps and…
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I suddenly became interested in The Karate Kid – and fell in love with Ralph Macchio
It’s never clear why you suddenly want to do things you’ve never done before, but this year, at my…
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When it comes to Chinese food and wine, there are brilliant pairings to be found
Our house has many corkscrews, which will come as no surprise. Only three occasions give the corkscrew the night off in…
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Briefly back in London for a day or two, I’m reminded of why I left
And now to Brighton. I stayed in London for a few days; rather fewer days than I thought I was going…
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Surgical stitch-up: meet the placebo surgeon
Could the placebo effect work in surgery? When a doctor wanted to investigate – by opening patients up but…
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When the human tide ebbs
Global population boom may now be turning to population bust. The consequences, for better or worse, will shape our…
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Will the Independent Group succeed?
If the Brexit crisis triggers an early election, it could wipe out the new group before it can establish…
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