In this week’s New Statesman, we invite ten left-wing thinkers to break the family values taboo and asks if dads are the answer to the riots. Inside, Spirit Level authors Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson argue that poverty is the real issue, not fathers, Blue Labour thinker Marc Stears says that blaming everything on inequality is a cop-out, Owen Jones warns that the unrest is being used to push a reactionary agenda, Labour MP Diane Abbott says that single mothers need support, not lectures, and Will Straw explains why encouraging marriage by tax breaks is pointless.
Elsewhere, Mehdi Hasan meets Tariq Jahan, whose quiet dignity over his son’s death made him a national hero. Jahan speaks movingly about losing a child, the radical Islamist past he abandoned to become a father, and why society isn’t “broken”.
Also this week, Laurie Penny talks to Johnnie Marbles, whose pie attack on Rupert Murdoch landed him in prison, John Pilger condemns the system of greed and self-interest behind the riots, Olivier Roy explains why Syria’s crisis is a turning point for the region, and Helen Lewis-Hasteley talks to Ranulph Fiennes about conquering Everest.
All this, plus Alice Miles on class segregation in the United States, Noah Richler on the fresh faces transforming Canadian politics, and David Marquand on Europe’s struggle for popular sovereignty.
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