Tom McTague, at the end of his Editor’s Note (7 November), quotes a declaration by Richard Crossman in the 1963 Jubilee edition of the New Statesman: “The long winter of our discontents seems to be over.” Crossman, who eventually became editor of the magazine, did not live to experience the period from late 1978 to early 1979.
I am rereading Crossman’s diaries of his time as a minister in Harold Wilson’s 1960s governments, a copy of which I found in a charity shop years ago and unearthed recently in a clear-out. Considering where we are now economically, the tone of Crossman’s writings from 60 years ago has a definite resonance. The then chancellor, Jim Callaghan – whom many readers will recall had more than a hand (“Crisis? What crisis?”) in the 1978-79 farrago – comes across as horribly indecisive in relation to the devaluation crisis then raging. So too does Wilson – if anything, even more so. Prevarication was the order of the day. And Crossman was, even then, fretting over House of Lords reform! Do things ever change?
Martin Skerritt, Dersingham, Norfolk
Capitalism, courage and climate
Recently, on our way to our lunch at the London restaurant Lupins, which has now closed, we passed Guy’s Hospital, a reminder of Jason Cowley’s Interview (7 November) with Anthony Barnett. Barnett’s analysis, “greed and competition has led to ecological catastrophe”, reminded me of the words Naomi Klein wrote in her 2014 book This Changes Everything: “We have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because these things fundamentally conflict with unregulated capitalism.” This view sits easily with the position of the late Pope Francis, who, in his 2015 Laudato Si’, for example, wrote: “With regard to climate change, the advances have been regrettably few. Reducing greenhouse gases requires honesty, courage and responsibility, above all on the part of those countries which are more powerful and pollute the most.”
Barnett shed other light: “The heart of neoliberalism is to give primacy to the market and to destroy all social and political impediments to its rule, breaking the trade unions, and removing the market from democratic government.” Clearly, neoliberalism facilitated the climate crisis.
David Murray, Wallington, Surrey
A royal pain
Several of your letter writers’ criticism (Correspondence, 7 November) of Will Lloyd’s rigorous and timely analysis (Cover Story, 31 October) focused upon the apparent safeguard of liberty and democracy provided by a constitutional monarch as head of state, with the monarchy required to recognise the constitutional primacy of parliament. But not one of them referred to the one recent occasion when this role was actually tested and failed dismally. I refer, of course, to the prorogation of parliament in 2019, effected by the monarch’s prerogative power, acting upon the constitutional conceit termed “advice” (instruction) of the prime minister, in council.
Two points about this have never had adequate debate. Firstly, this hugely controversial step to evade parliamentary accountability was outside any precedent, yet was accepted meekly by the monarch without taking any steps to ascertain its lawfulness (such as independent legal counsel) or simply declining to exercise the prerogative. Secondly, the eventual quashing of the prorogation by the Supreme Court was merely a fortuitous outcome as a result of the initiative of one of the monarch’s humble subjects (Gina Miller), not of any initiative within the political system.
We must not fool ourselves that the monarchy, whatever its merits (in my view, modest), provides any substantive safeguard compared to, for example, the constitutionally defined powers and duties of an elected non-executive president.
John Crawley, Beverley, East Yorkshire
All praise for Will Lloyd’s Cover Story. It is a tale of woe. The wealth of the royal family and the number of its palaces are an outrage when there is an acute housing shortage. But abolition would create a vacuum – a vacuum of more unrest – unless an alternative is found that is acceptable to our multicultural society.
What alternatives could there be that will hold our country together? William Pitt in 1791 faced a similar crisis with the UK facing meltdown: war with France and other European nations and a weak economy, similar to that which troubles us (and Rachel Reeves) now. Warfare had weakened our country; the British Army was enfeebled. But even in its weakness the monarchy held the United Kingdom together, whereas in France the revolution that abolished the monarchy tore apart France in a bloody Terror.
Might it not be preferable to stick with the monarchy we have now, urging radical changes rather than abolition? Where do readers and Will Lloyd suggest we start?
Brian King, Hampton, Greater London
Farage barrage
Please can you stop giving Reform so much coverage? It’s as if they’ve won the election already. Why not tell us more about the Liberal Democrats and their 72 MPs, rather than Reform with their four? I believe there’s some good in them and we need some more positive coverage before we all jump off a cliff.
Alison Eldred, Cheltenham
In the first half of the New Statesman (7 November) Nigel Farage is mentioned by name 19 times, compared to Keir Starmer three times, Kemi Badenoch twice and Ed Davey not at all. Is it worth reminding your writers that in the House of Commons Starmer leads 405 MPs; Badenoch 119 MPs; Davey 72 MPs; while Farage leads just five other Reform MPs?
John Boaler, Calne, Wiltshire
Put it to the (solar) panel
Rachel Cunliffe’s article about a Lincolnshire solar farm (Future Perfect, 31 October) raises a much broader point about the housing crisis. Where I live in east Kent, it is very likely that permission will be granted to build housing that would add more than 50 per cent of the population to the village. The majority of the village’s residents are appalled about this complete transformation of the place they have made their home, with no benefit to existing residents.
It is widely known that the farmer who owns the land will make many millions of pounds from it, simply from having had the good fortune of being born into a family that owns that piece of land. What if other residents were compensated for this loss in a reasonable way with the great majority of the money going towards local amenities or infrastructure? That amount would in this case most likely pay for a bypass for the busy road going through the village. I, and I suspect a great many other residents, would accept this.
The reason such high numbers of people object to mass housebuilding like this is that there are a few people (land-owning farmers, huge house-building corporations, planning barristers) who are making vast amounts of money out of a public policy crisis. Maybe if this were changed, in accordance with the principle that Cunliffe suggests, people wouldn’t be so unhappy about it.
Henry Fitch, Kent
I don’t often write to comment on the usually excellent articles in your mag, but Rachel Cunliffe’s article about getting locals’ buy-in for solar farms is spot on. Parallels can easily be drawn with the huge infrastructure works taking place in the very far north of Scotland, where I live. Every week the local press is full of negative coverage and much of it justified simply because residents are being asked to bear the costs from which others, principally in the big cities, benefit.
Paul Main, near Golspie, Sutherland
What goes around
If my memory serves, during the period in the 1980s when the student grant was under discussion (Deleted Scenes, 31 October) Tony Benn spoke on a TV show in favour of maintaining the grant. He reasoned that graduates were more likely to find higher-paying jobs, enabling them to pay higher taxes. However, the New Statesman asked if it was fair, for instance, for a bus driver with two non-academically gifted children to pay for the children of lawyers and engineers to go to college. (I cannot recall if the magazine dealt with the case of a bus driver with two academically gifted children…) It is nice to see the New Statesman is helping Pippa Bailey pay off her debts, incurred due to its erstwhile point of view.
John Clifford Patterson (receiver of a grant from 1975 though 1979), Inverness
Curing alements in Belgium
As someone who lived in Belgium for several years, I very much enjoyed Tom McTague’s Editor’s Note extolling the virtues of Belgium and its delightful beers (31 October). I trust that Tom will make a return visit to sample the Christmas beers, not least the 12 per cent Stille Nacht, which is the stand(/pass)-out beer.
Ken Lambert, Sheffield
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This article appears in the 13 Nov 2025 issue of the New Statesman, What Keir won't hear