Section: New Statesman (The United Kingdom)
Ralph Fiennes on his “weird infatuation” with Russian life
The actor-turned-director talks to the New Statesman about portraying Russian ballet star Rudolf Nureyev in his latest film The White Crow Ralph Fiennes third film as a director, The White Crow, tells the story of ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev’s defection from Russia to the West. In 1961, on a tour of Paris with the Mariinsky Ballet at the...
22 things we learned from Michael Cohen’s jaw-dropping Congressional testimony
Here’s what we from the House Oversight Committee’s grilling of the president’s former attorney and fixer. America has been transfixed by the bombshell public grilling by the House Oversight Committee of Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen. It was a day filled with drama, and we learned a lot of new information...
Ukip wife swap: Channel 4’s surreal show Sleeping with the Far Right
Plus: BBC One’s The Missing spin-off Baptiste. Jack Sen is not your average British right-winger, and not only because his views are so extreme he has been expelled from Ukip and suspended by the BNP. For one thing, he grew up in America, where he lived from the age of seven until he was 20, and still speaks with a certain twang. For...
Can we be sure we aren’t at war?
From cyber-warfare to organised crime, foreign powers can engage in a range of hostile acts without traditional weapons. Look around you. The signs are everywhere. The Russian attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury is the most obvious: carried out by named members Russian military intelligence, the GRU, it resulted in the death of Dawn...
The murder of Gdansk mayor Paweł Adamowicz reflects Poland’s increasingly toxic political climate
Adamowicz had long been a victim of hate, but was it really the hate that killed him? In 2017, a far-right youth organisation called All-Polish Youth issued a series of “political death certificates” announcing the demise of high-profile pro-European politicians. Among them was Paweł Adamowicz, the long-serving mayor of Gdansk, famous in Poland...
The letters that won the war
In their correspondence, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin displayed the combination of realpolitik, illusion and hubris that is essential for really creative diplomacy. So what exactly did Donald Trump say to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in July 2018? No, not what Trump said he said when tweeting the tweet fantastic or in one of his fake-news...
If we want to survive on this planet, we need to abandon the cause of the nation state
If we really care for the fate of the people who comprise our nation, our motto should be: America last, China last, Russia last. The latest news from the border of Ukraine and Russia indicates that we already live in a pre-war situation – so what should we, ordinary people, do when the explosion of global madness looms? Perhaps, our first...
If we want to survive on this planet, we need to betray the cause of the nation state
If we really care for the fate of the people who compose our nation, our motto should be: America last, China last, Russia last… The latest news from the border of Ukraine and Russia indicates that we already live in a pre-war situation – so what should we, ordinary people, do when the explosion of global madness looms? Perhaps, our first...
With Michael Cohen’s guilty plea, the Mueller inquiry heats up
Trump’s former fixer’s deal with prosecutors confirms that the president lied about his Russian business interests It can be easy, given the steady drip-drip of news and intrigue related to the Mueller Inquiry, to lose sight of the bigger picture. By pleading guilty to lying to Congress, Donald Trump’s former fixer Michael...
Why are Russian forces attacking Ukraine in the Sea of Azov?
The political trap was intended to polarise Ukrainian society around the best ways to handle Russian aggression. The Azov Sea has coastlines on Ukraine, Russia and Ukrainian-but-Russian-occupied Crimea, the latter of which it is divided from the Black Sea by. Last weekend, Russian military forces fired on and captured three Ukrainian naval...
