Labour’s belated bid for definition
Keir Starmer has discovered that technocratic management is not enough – his party needs political leadership.
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
The Reformation
Letter of the week: Bring in the big guns
Write to letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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Whiplash on the Labour benches
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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It’s time for climate populism
As politics turns against net zero, we need to mobilise a genuine mass movement against ecological catastrophe.
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Euan Blair: “Education does not only happen on campus”
The tech start-up founder – and son of Tony Blair – on the value of apprenticeships and what his…
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The problem with “open secrets”
Also this week: Netflix tackles the Corby toxic waste scandal and polyamory admin.
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Politics in the age of the chiefs of staff
Advisers like Dominic Cummings and Morgan McSweeney might become the story – but real power always lies with the…
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The British public was wise to Labour’s deportation videos
Also this week: Rupert Murdoch charms the White House, while the Maga-sphere’s assaults on US media intensify.
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The myth of a noble America
The US’s lofty rhetoric has long been at odds with its sordid practice.
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The Prince Charles Cinema and the death of the West End
No city has as flagrant a disregard for its own culture as London.
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Labour’s Reformation
Under threat from the populist right, Keir Starmer is forging a hard new politics.
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The battle for Labour’s soul
An insurgent Blue Labour is colliding with the Treasury and the progressive left.
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Katharine Birbalsingh: “They’re going to destroy our schools”
The outspoken headteacher believes Bridget Phillipson’s reforms are an attack on educational freedom. She is ready for the fight.
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South Korea’s chaos politics
Conspiracy, power grabs and violence threaten the country’s democracy.
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The long reign of the Caesars
Charlemagne and The Sopranos, Trump and I, Claudius – all owe a debt to the imperial biographies of Suetonius.
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From Edmund White to Philip Marsden: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Threads of Empire by Dorothy Armstrong and Beartooth by Callan Wink.
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The woman who made the rape kit
This story of Martha Goddard’s forensic method does more than reclaim her role in history – it gives her…
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The contested life of Roger Casement
The Irish nationalist was caught in the fault lines between empire and nation, colonised and coloniser, public face and…
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Eimear McBride’s literature of desire
The Irish author’s exhilarating fourth novel, The City Changes Its Face, proves there is nobody writing sex like her.
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Richard Dawson’s songs of England
On his new album The End of the Middle, the cult singer explores a nation defined by loss and…
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Bridget Jones after Mr Darcy
This fourth instalment in the series – which follows Bridget after the death of her husband – is the…
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The White Lotus is as good and twisted as ever
Thanks to our sharp-eyed puppetmaster Mike White, this third series is an intensely satisfying slow burn.
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Kyoto gives voice to the urgency of the climate crisis
Soho Place’s perceptive and absorbing production shrewdly reminds its audience that there is nothing more exciting than saving the…
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Roses are the wrong pick for Valentine’s Day
Out-of-season, flown-in flowers heavy with pesticide are an odd way to show you care.
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A diamond ring is one of the worst investments you can make
Nothing, not even a brand-new car or a designer dress, depreciates as quickly as a diamond.
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I am a man who orders combs when drunk
For £14, I’ve bought something that will remain ornamental – unless I turn it into a kazoo, which will…
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I barely recognise the AI version of me
According to ChatGPT, my writing is typified by obsessions with pizza, lattes and “semantics”.
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This England: Right tools for the dog
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
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Subscriber of the week: Barbara Oliver
Please email zuzanna.lachendro@newstatesman.co.uk if you would like to be featured.
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Judith Butler Q&A: “I’d like more joy, more music, a new political regime”
The philosopher and gender theorist on Hegel, Kafka, and getting lost at the circus.
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