Michael Bracewell’s anatomy of English nostalgia
In Unfinished Business one of our finest cultural critics returns to fiction with a meditation on memory and national decline.
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Conservatives are losing confidence in Rishi Sunak
The number of MPs who ask whether the Prime Minister is simply too inexperienced for these grim times is growing.
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Why the IMF sees Britain as the sick man of the global economy
The UK’s growth is forecast to fall behind every other major economy, including Russia.
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The twilight of the British Union
If Labour wins the next election it will face nationalist opponents in Scotland and England. Could the UK survive?
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Leader: How to reverse British decline
Rather than indulging in post-imperial fantasies, Britain should learn from those mid-sized economies that are both richer and more equal…
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In my great-great-grandfather’s poetry, I glimpse the Britain I report on today
George Lattimer, a trade unionist in Victorian London writing about fair pay and the workhouse, would still have plenty of…
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Does your salary mean you’re rich? What makes you upper, middle or working class? We asked the British public
In exclusive polling for the New Statesman by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, voters tell us what they think are high…
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Britain must finally shed its illusions of greatness
As our public services edge closer to collapse, we need the humility to acknowledge that the country has lost its…
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When will Boris Johnson and his gang finally leave us in peace?
The Tory zealots who have broken Britain should depart the stage and let others clean up the mess they have…
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Cool Britannia, once the envy of the world, is no more
It’s too expensive, nothing works and Brits don’t like foreigners anymore.
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“You don’t trash your neighbours”: David Lammy on global Britain under Labour
Would UK foreign policy be any different if Keir Starmer’s party won power?
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A child has died from Britain’s failed housing system. Will the government finally act?
Incidents like the death of Awaab Ishak are thankfully rare; the conditions that lead to them are all too common.
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How Peter Kay changed British comedy
The beloved Bolton comic, now going on tour for the first time in over a decade, became a national phenomenon…
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We shouldn’t demonise Winston Churchill – or deify him
The point of history is to see people and situations in the round rather than to succumb to satisfying myths.
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Rishi Sunak’s vision for “Global Britain” is empty
What should we make of a Brexiteer who studied stateside and tried to avoid Cop27?
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How the Ford Fiesta defined the British economy
Ford has discontinued what was for many years Britain’s most popular car.
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Liz Truss is a morbid symptom of British capitalism’s long crisis
The Prime Minister unwittingly posed a question that should haunt her party: what is the point of capitalism if it…
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It’s time to banish Britain’s Celtic ghosts
The Anglo-Celt divide continues to shape the political fate of the British Isles – yet it is a historical mirage.
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Britain braces itself for the devastation of austerity 2.0
Britons on low incomes dread the Liz Truss government’s “reverse Robin Hood” plan, which prioritises bankers over benefit claimants.
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The Conservatives’ Great Leap Forward
Liz Truss and her team understand the British economy’s weaknesses but their utopian free-market solutions are undermining the Bank of…
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