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Tony Blair's second career: explaining his first
Labour's last election-winner's post-Prime Ministerial career should trouble the chillaxing Cameron, says Kevin Meagher. There was a time when retired Prime Ministers enjoyed a broad measure of...
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As Labour's civil war intensifies, Jeremy Corbyn faces a choice
After the Syria split, the leader must choose between cooperation or confrontation. Whenever Labour has been divided, foreign policy has been a defining faultine. In 1935, pacifist leader George...
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Who'll be Robert Mugabe's successor?
The internal jousting to suceed Mugabe at the top is well underway - but there is little prospect of Zanu-PF losing its grip on power. After 35 years at the helm, Robert Mugabe shows no interest in...
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Hardest harvest: the understated ache of Sunset Song
Terence Davies’s adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbons's 1932 novel hasn't "got legs"– that's the point. It’s been a hard-knock life for Terence Davies. His autobiographical trilogy of shorts, made...
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In The Murder Detectives, terrible crimes feel mundane
I’ve seen Channel 4's The Murder Detectives described elsewhere as “gripping”. I’m going to come over all honest and transgressive, and tell you that I was quite often quite bored. On 5 March 2014...
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No tale too tall: the time Donald Macleod's straight face slipped
Over the years, Macleod has perfected the tones of the world’s least extravagant teacher for Composer of the Week. One opera, however, left him lost for words. During a week of hour-long programmes...
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Assad’s barbarism, white women’s fiction, and how my imaginary cat didn’t get...
I have to admit my eyebrows lifted at Marlon James' assertion that “if I pandered to a cultural tone set by white women, particular[ly] older white female critics, I would have had ten stories...
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Mourinho the tactician and Wenger the educator – both are perfectionists,...
When Mourinho described Wenger as “a specialist in failure”, it was not cruelly accurate but sadly false. It showed the limitations of Mourinho’s world-view. Naivety is usually considered a disastrous...
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Maggie’s schizophrenia was bad, but was it bad enough to have her sectioned?
The assessment might have trashed my timetable but it was an afternoon well spent. According to medical folklore, most mental health crises occur on Friday afternoons. I am not sure that this is...
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I’ve been ill again – and the finger of suspicion points to an empty packet...
I have to isolate which aspect of my behaviour it is that is causing me to fall so ill, so frequently. Surely it can have nothing to do with my wine consumption. That is crazy talk. As I write, I can...
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A tale of two polls, the MPs that didn’t bark, and finding inner peace in a...
In weeks like this, I wish that I had the ability to switch off and didn’t find myself reading angry blogs about Labour on my phone at 11.30pm. There is no starker illustration of Labour’s divide than...
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Why the CIA torture techniques aren't a reliable way of extracting information
Far from getting reliable information, torture is a gruelling process that yields few results - and harm for both victim and perpetrator. If Ant and Dec had read the “torture memos” released by Barack...
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Clash of the titans: when Boris Johnson met Mary Beard
The debate brought out a series of old divides: Oxford vs Cambridge, Left vs Right. . . Greece vs Rome. The thousands shivering in a queue outside the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, aren’t Adele...
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How African boys are trafficked to Europe for football trials
Field of dreams? Footie may be only a pretext for young boys to leave Africa. Every year, thousands of young Africans pay men masquerading as football scouts for aeroplane tickets, passports and visas...
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Performers and fans are like owners and pets – but I’m not sure which is which
At a Carrie Brownstein reading, I was reminded again how alike performers and fans can be. It's hard to tell who belongs to who. After a recent party drought that found me at home every evening with a...
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Justin Bieber is “all grown up”. So why are his lyrics so childish?
A Portrait of the Artist as a Douchebag. Justin Bieber is having a moment. Last week, he made US chart history when he smashed a record previously held by the Beatles for the most singles in the...
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Why is it so hard for women to accept their bodies?
Women’s hatred of their bodies is such an everyday phenomenon that we pay no heed to just how deeply it cuts into our sense of self. If there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s this: it’s all a waste...
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The NS Podcast #126: Benn, by-election and books
The New Statesman Podcast takes the political temperature in the aftermath of the vote on Syria. This week we discuss Hilary Benn's electrifying speech before the Syria vote and Labour's prospects...
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Labour win Oldham West by-election with 11,000 majority
Party achieves better than expected victory as vote share rises to 62 per cent. Labour has won the Oldham West and Royton by-election - and by a larger margin than almost anyone predicted. MPs...
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The media would have blamed Jeremy Corbyn for the loss - they can't deny him...
Jim McMahon was a great candidate, but Jeremy is a great leader, argues Liam Young. As the Oldham by-election announcement was made this morning, if you listened close enough you could hear the...
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