Tory modernisation has failed
Kemi Badenoch is a symptom of Conservative decline rather than success.
ByThe Magazine
In this week’s issue
Kemi Isn’t Working
Jeremy Hunt: the man whose fault it wasn’t
The former chancellor says the public has lost trust in politicians. However could that have happened?
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GMB chief Gary Smith: “Oil and gas is not the enemy”
The trade union leader on Labour’s net zero folly and why it can’t win in Scotland.
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Why junior doctors are right to strike back
Also this week: downsizing to a flat and a bumper year for fathers over 60.
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The Mouses of Parliament
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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Letter of the week: A catastrophic war
Write to letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
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Keir Starmer is no politician – but this could be his strength
This oddest of prime ministers has the hide of a rhinoceros.
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The Epstein conspiracy has unmasked Trump as a faux-populist
Trump told his Maga base to look the other way. Now it’s looking at him.
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Who is accountable in privatised Britain?
From unadopted housing estates to a road no one seems to own – hollowed-out local government can no longer…
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The government’s government problem
Labour is full of clever people who do not seem able to get anything done.
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Schools need more sex education, not less
Children must be prepared for the world as it is.
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Kemi Badenoch isn’t working
The Tory leader was supposed to save her party. What went wrong?
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The Afghan data scandal and the sins of New Labour
The British state remains in thrall to Blairite adventurism.
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The best summer reads 2025
The essential books of the year so far, according to New Statesman staff and contributors.
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Are emojis killing language?
Keith Houston’s history of the little emoticons charts how quickly technology has changed how we think and communicate.
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David Gentleman’s pensées for the novice artist
His advice is not highfalutin, but at least it is straightforward.
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From Xenobe Purvis to Jeffrey Wasserstrom: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Moveable Feasts by Chris Newens and Monsieur Ozenfant’s Academy by Charles Darwent.
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The Bad Guys 2 is the sequel this summer needed
DreamWorks’ animation addresses complex moral questions in exhilarating, raffish style.
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Mark Gatiss’s ode to murder mysteries
In the twee world of Bookish, a new crime drama set in post war London, being well read is…
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Run Sister Run is a winding descent into tragedy
Chloë Moss’s play explores addiction, codependence and time’s cruel loops in a stark, intimate staging.
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One hundred and one Dalmatian wines
If the grape world has buried treasure, it lies in central and eastern Europe and the Caucasus.
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My brother was taken from us. I don’t know what to do
Life will never be the same again.
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I am a curse on English cricket
So, naturally, I must sacrifice myself for my country.
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All roads lead to Rome? We should be so lucky
“Welcome to Britaly” sounds more like an aspiration than an omen.
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This England: Stop eating your heart out
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…
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From the archive: Christopher Hitchens on Michael Foot
November 1980: The journalist and author excoriates the then leader of the opposition’s book.
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