In this week’s New Statesman, we look at why the right, not the left, is winning the crisis. In our cover story, David Marquand finds social democracy in disarray across Europe and explains what Ed Miliband needs to do to buck the trend. Elsewhere, Dan Hodges takes the pulse of the post-election Labour Party and detects an uneasy peace as supporters of David Miliband and Ed Balls return to their old briefing habits.
Also this week, we exclusively publish the list of demands tabled by the Liberal Democrats during their coalition talks with Labour. In his column, Jason Cowley reveals that a Lab-Lib deal was possible on every issue apart from deficit reduction. But Nick Clegg’s party never had any intention of sticking to its election pledge to delay spending cuts until next year.
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Elsewhere, Mehdi Hasan argues that Cameron’s “big society” is little more than a buzz phrase, David Blanchflower warns that Ireland’s storm is blowing our way and Daniel Trilling explains why we should welcome the return of direct action to Britain.
All this, plus an exclusive interview with Lutfur Rahman, the controversial mayor of Tower Hamlets, Laurie Penny on the students’ protest and our selection of the best books of 2010, including contributions from Ed Miliband, Bianca Jagger and Alain de Botton.