Signing Off: Lives and Letters
For one more time, for one last time: 10 memorable pieces from my editorship, 2008-2024, essays, commentary, poetry, fiction, interviews
December 21 2024 / The Saturday Read
Gary Lineker: The End of an Era
He is one of the most successful people in the UK, a master of reinvention, and yet is hated by some. Why does being Gary Lineker mean being hated at all?
December 5 2024 / The New Statesman
Editor's Note: My Farewell to the New Statesman
A key challenge for any NS editor: what to do about the Labour Party?
December 4 2024 / The New Statesman
Bill Gates: The Optimist's Dilemma
Exclusive interview: The billionaire philanthropist’s warning to the world
November 28 2024 / The New Statesman
Like Thatcherism, Trumpism is here to stay
The Trumpist MAGA movement has cultural roots that the left failed to understand or confront
November 6 2024 / The New Statesman
England Undone
Keir Starmer was compelled to use the full force of the Hobbesian state to quash anarchy and reimpose public order. But the riots revealed something dark and shocking: an England atomised, an England in pieces
August 14 2024 / The New Statesman
Gareth Southgate: The Quiet Englishman
The Southgate era is over but the spirit of Southgatism will endure
July 17 2024 / The New Statesman
Editor's Note: All changed, changed utterly
The Conservatives and SNP routed: the kingdom is more stable than at any time since the Scottish independence referendum of 2014
July 10 2024 / The New Statesman
New Times: The Labour landslide
The plan for Labour’s return to power following its abject defeat in 2019 pre-existed Keir Starmer but only he could have implemented it
July 7 2024 / The Sunday Times
Letter from Taipei: The Taiwan conundrum
Rereading JG Ballard’s Empire of the Sun, from 1984, I understood that he had already anticipated the rise of China and the world to come
July 2 2024 / The New Statesman
Nigel Farage: A Populist at Large
Farage calls himself the Billy Graham of politics and believes he has done more than anyone else to defeat the far right in Britain. What forces does he channel but also hold in check and how far can he take Reform, the non-party party, or self-styled people’s army? Now, he says, he’s coming for Labour voters
June 26 2024 / The New Statesman
David Lammy: The World as It Is
Britain’s next Foreign Secretary on the new realism and why Britain must adapt to the world as it is, not as liberals or the left wish it to be
