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Me and my monarch: Catherine de Medici
Unfairly vilified - like many female rulers - Catherine de Medici kept France together during a turbulent time. Her life also shows that being a princess is rubbish. When I was growing up, I was...
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Jon Lansman interview: "There's no leader who would find it easier to win...
The Momentum chair on Jeremy Corbyn's electability, mandatory reselection of MPs and the mistakes the left made in the 1980s. On 27 September 1981, minutes after Tony Benn’s defeat in the Labour...
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Commons confidential: Pure and easy
From "rebel with a cause" Iain Duncan Smith to Tim Farron's rock band years.Rebel for a cause Iain Duncan Smith is now free to speak his mind after stepping down from the Cabinet bus. A snout...
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The Conservatives' plans for higher education are the wrong approach
Tory plans will shut the poorest out of higher education, warns Bex Bailey. I want people to be able to go to the best university they can get into, not the best university they can afford. Plans to...
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What a film about a dog has to teach us when it comes to love and death
Heart of a Dog is a part-documentary, part-film essay with a skew-whiff sense of humour. Laurie Anderson speaks in soothing tones of refrigerated evenness that never quite make you feel that everything...
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I hate agreeing with Andy Burnham – but he's got a point about Northern ambition
The Greater Manchester mayoral candidate has suggested ambitious Northern children are mocked. It's a generalisation – but is there a grain of truth in it? Do Northerners mock the ambitious more than...
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Why Jeremy Corbyn's Labour is right to be making noise over tuition fee rises
For both political and policy reasons, the party is better-placed to benefit from a row over tuition fees than in times past. Yesterday's Queen's Speech was written with one eye on the referendum and...
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The Unexplained With Howard Hughes: the podcast that investigates the paranormal
The podcast always seems to feature a guest sweetly insisting, “This is not a bunch of baloney!” Ever since Howard Hughes started presenting a Sunday-night show on the recently launched talkRADIO, the...
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My daughters voted for the first time – now I have to tell them they won’t...
When they ask me what I think of Jeremy Corbyn’s chances in 2020, I look at their bright little faces, all lit up and expectant, and pause for a moment. My daughters have just voted for the first...
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The NS Podcast #149: Monarchy, mayors and the media
The New Statesman podcast. This week, Helen Lewis and Stephen Bush review the Queen’s Speech and discuss candidates for the next mayor of Manchester. George Eaton catches up with the latest from the...
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Andy Burnham has found the radical centre – and it could win him Greater...
Burnham's enthusiasm at his launch was uncharacteristic for a Thursday morning in Salford as he promised to not just be a Mayor for Greater Manchester, but to create a new "northern Labour". Today,...
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Why English schoolchildren are so unhappy
With more testing than ever and increased waiting times for child mental health services, what can be done to alleviate the pressure on England's young people? Earlier this month, around 2,000 six-...
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John Healey interview: Labour must unite behind Jeremy Corbyn as long as he's...
The shadow housing minister warns that "division" distracts from the task of "being a good opposition". John Healey is one of Labour’s great survivors. The Yorkshireman served in government for nine...
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Me and my monarch: King John
He was the worst king England ever had – but his legacy was one of the best. Pretty much every fixed idea in history goes through a period of revisionism, and the more you read into the past the more...
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Is Facebook’s newsfeed really biased against conservatives – and, if not,...
There is no such thing as objective journalism, and in the case of Facebook, no requirement to be objective. It was a hectic spring morning at the height of the Ukraine crisis. On the radio,...
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To govern again, Labour must do a deal with the SNP and focus on England
Labour's new electoral reality makes an accommodation with Scottish nationalism inevitable. Looking at this month’s election results we can draw two main conclusions. Firstly, Jeremy Corbyn is secure...
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Victory in London was Jeremy Corbyn’s, not Sadiq Khan’s
The ward-by-ward breakdown of the London result defies much of the initial punditry. I’ve been looking at the ward-by-ward breakdown of the London mayoral results, because I know how to have a good...
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The novels that taught me what to think about royals
Richard III was innocent, Mary I was hard done by, and it really wasn't fair that they shot Anastasia. First, some background. I went to primary school in the US, where teachers were understandably...
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Antisemitism is rare in Britain, but Labour should still examine itself
New polling shows that political prejudice against Jews is neither widespread nor non-existent. Another week, another bunch of stories about antisemitism in the Labour Party. First off we had the...
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Michael Gove pledges to campaign for higher NHS spending even if the UK...
The Justice Secretary denies that his stance is born of political opportunism. If the UK votes to leave the EU, there will be fewer immigrants and more money for the NHS. This has become the Out...
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