WHO WAS FRANZ FERDINAND?
SIMON WINDER GOES IN SEARCH OF THE MAN WHOSE ASSASSINATION 100 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK LED TO WAR IN EUROPE
JON CRUDDAS REBUKES SHADOW MINISTERS FOR PLAYING “TOP TRUMPS” WITH THE LABOUR LEADERSHIP
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TIM WIGMORE: MY LIFE AS BENEDICT BROGAN’S GHOST
PETER WILBY ON THE REBEKAH BROOKS VERDICT AND THE HACKING AFFAIR: “COME HELL, HIGH WATER OR HACKING, ONE STORY NEVER CHANGES – MURDOCH COMES OUT ON TOP”
GEORGE EATON: “THE TORIES ARE OBSESSED WITH MILIBAND’S ‘WEAKNESS’. THEY’D DO BETTER TO REFLECT ON THEIR OWN”
THE RED PRINCES: SOPHIE McBAIN ON NEPOTISM AT THE HEART OF THE LABOUR PARTY
LINDSEY HILSUM AND FERGAL KEANE REPORT FROM BAGHDAD AND THE KURDISH FRONT LINE AS THE SUNNI v SHIA CONFLICT ESCALATES
ROBIN LUSTIG ON HIS FRONTKÄMPFER GRANDFATHER AND THE LOSER’S VIEW OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR
SIMON HEFFER ON THE LONG BATTLE BETWEEN HISTORIANS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR
THE POLITICS INTERVIEW: JON CRUDDAS
In an interview with George Eaton this week, Jon Cruddas, Labour’s policy review co-ordinator, defends Ed Miliband and issues a stern rebuke to those shadow ministers who are widely believed to be positioning themselves for a Labour leadership contest:
“This is a journey of self-discovery; it’s not a question of leadership. It’s a deeper question about what the party is. This won’t be resolved by throwing someone else in front of the train.
“You ain’t going to do it by having a game of top trumps across the leadership. It’s not about Andy [Burnham], or Ed [Balls], or Yvette [Cooper],” he says, becoming the first shadow cabinet member publicly to name some of those regarded by Labour MPs as positioning themselves for a future leadership contest. “If people think the solution to this is X rather than Y, they are deluding themselves.”
Discussing his responsibility for the policy review, Cruddas appears hopeful that the project will succeed but he acknowledges there are problems ahead:
Cruddas is not certain that his vision will survive contact with Labour’s political machine, speaking of “tripwires”, “cross-currents” and “tensions”. He identifies the “essential conservatism” of organisations and the party’s “centralised” and even “authoritarian” tendencies as the main obstacles to change. “Have we got the political agility and the game to mainline it into our formal policy offer and the architecture of the party? The jury’s out on that but I’m pretty confident.”
TIM WIGMORE: MY LIFE AS BENEDICT BROGAN’S GHOST
The former Daily Telegraph journalist Tim Wigmore, who worked as Benedict Brogan’s “little slave” for a year on the newspaper’s Morning Briefing email, recalls the angry political advisers, “capricious alarm clocks, sleep deprivation, dodgy phone signal and lousy IT software” he had to contend with every day during his stint on this “Westminster institution for the smartphone age”.
*Read Tim Wigmore’s article in full below*
THE POLITICS COLUMN: TIME FOR THE COMPLACENT TORIES TO PANIC
In the Politics Column, the NS political editor, George Eaton, argues that it is time for the Conservatives to stop rejoicing over Ed Miliband’s “subterranean personal ratings” and to start worrying about their own depressed showing in the polls:
William Hague is fond of joking that the Conservative Party has only two modes: panic and complacency. Having exhibited plenty signs of the former (as displayed by the intermittent briefing wars over Cameron’s putative successor), the Tories are now lapsing into the latter. The monomaniacal focus on Labour’s weaknesses, rather than their own, is evidence of a party that is in danger of forgetting why it did not win a majority in 2010. “We have made a series of mistakes collectively because we have always underestimated him [Miliband],” said Eric Pickles recently, in a rare moment of Conservative self-criticism. But even more than that, the Tories need to avoid overestimating themselves.
*Read the Politics Column in full below*
THE MEDIA COLUMN: PETER WILBY ON THE REBEKAH BROOKS VERDICT
In the wake of the not guilty verdict for Rebekah Brooks at the Old Bailey, the NS media columnist, Peter Wilby, considers the minimal impact of the hacking affair on Rupert Murdoch’s vast empire:
Excited as we all must be by the prospect of the Old Bill fingering Rupert Murdoch – detectives, it is reported, will formally interview him under Section 79 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which concerns “the criminal liability of directors” – it is doubtful that anything will come of it. Five of Coulson’s fellow defendants in the Old Bailey trial walked free and it is evident from this case and others that, in order to convict, juries require not so much a smoking gun as an armoury that’s fully ablaze.
Though there are more trials of journalists to come, we should expect as many acquittals as convictions. Moreover, the hacking affair hasn’t done Murdoch’s business interests much damage. True, the NoW closed and its replacement, the Sun on Sunday, sells nearly a million fewer copies. True, also, News Corp had to abandon its attempt to buy 100 per cent of BSkyB. But Murdoch then split his newspapers and his other media interests (such as 21st Century Fox) into separate companies. Their combined value has soared and, according to Forbes magazine, the Murdoch family’s net wealth is up from £4.4bn to £7.9bn. Come hell, high water or hacking, one story never changes: Murdoch comes out on top.
THE RED PRINCES: NEPOTISM IN THE LABOUR PARTY
Sophie McBain investigates the political princelings who are parachuting into winnable Labour seats with the help of relatives. The “Red Princes” of the party “can’t put their success down to their superior social-democratic DNA”, McBain argues; rather, they have “benefited from ‘high social capital’” and a dynastic political system that “lends itself quite naturally to nepotism”:
Labour’s so-called Red Princes have all worked in politics – in think tanks, for the European Parliament or US Congress, or as campaign strategists. Neil Kinnock is the son of a coal miner and Jack Straw grew up on an Essex council estate but their offspring enjoyed affluent upbringings and effortless transitions from Oxbridge into high-flying jobs. What does this tell us about the state of the Labour Party – or even British democracy?
[. . .]
The children of MPs enter politics with an understanding of the Westminster system, as well as ready-made political connections and influential backers, which all help if you are looking for a parachute into a winnable seat.
In this way, at least, Labour reflects the society it aspires to represent: the UK has the lowest level of social mobility in the developed world.
COVER STORY: WHO WAS FRANZ FERDINAND?
In the cover story for our First World War special issue, Simon Winder explores the life of the pious, hunting-mad Habsburg heir whose assassination 100 years ago this week caused catastrophe and led to the fall of empires.
Elsewhere in the issue, Simon Heffer traces the complex historiography of the war, which began with the opening shot and has been fought over ever since. Owen Clayton introduces some unfamiliar voices from the battle for the trenches, including Guillaume Apollinaire, a naturalised Frenchman of Polish descent, and the German anti-war poet Alfred Lichtenstein. The broadcaster Robin Lustig shares the story of his German Jewish grandfather who fought in the trenches for his country and always maintained that Germany was not guilty of starting the war, even though he was forced to flee the Nazis in the 1940s. The special issue also includes a reprint of Siegfried Sassoon’s poem “To One Who Was With Me in the War”, first published in the New Statesman of 22 May 1926.
Plus
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Jonathan Wilson’s Brazil Notebook: Boring Roy dared to become the World Cup cavalier – and suffered the consequences
Our TV critic, Rachel Cooke, nods off listening to dreary World Cup pundits
Leo Robson on realism and the meaning of the novel
Tracey Thorn on Viv Albertine, punk queen
Laurie Penny: A new bogeyman does not justify the government stealing our Facebook messages
Philip Hoare on the folk art that tells the story of Britain’s feral past
Will Self’s Madness of Crowds: Get naked with a bunch of others and lose that nagging sense of inferiority
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