Section: New Statesman (The United Kingdom)
David Cameron’s deal is a farce – the Remain campaign should steer clear of it
Winning ugly won’t work, warns David Clark. David Cameron’s referendum pitch relies heavily on the mantra a “reformed Europe”, but it would be wrong for pro-Europeans to indulge the idea that the deal he negotiated in Brussels last month is anything more than a fig leaf. The parts of it that might turn out to be modestly beneficial...
From pornography to surrogacy, too few of us are ethical consumers of bodies
When it comes to buying access to other people’s bodies, experience shows that it’s a buyer’s market: those with the economic power set the terms. Sometimes I wish I was better at maths, because there’s a diagram I really want to draw. Here are the two axes – up the side, need for item or service; across the bottom,...
Ukrainian cooking shakes off the old Soviet fur coat
Forget the stereotype: Ukranian cuisine is about more than just borscht, as a new cookbook shows. “Potatoes,” Olia Hercules fumes. “Everyone thinks I’ve written a book about bloody potatoes.” It must be said that there is the odd spud in Mamushka (Mitchell Beazley), her surprisingly colourful celebration of Ukrainian food (after all, how...
Letter from Donetsk: ice cream, bustling bars and missiles in eastern Ukraine
In Donetsk, which has been under the control of Russian backed rebels since April 2014, the propaganda has a hermetic, relentless feel to it. Eighty-eight year-old Nadya Moroz stares through the taped-up window of her flat in Donetsk, blown in by persistent bombing. She wonders why she abandoned her peaceful village for a “better life” in Donetsk...
Q&A: Why the UN’s Julian Assange ruling is meaningless
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has no legal force in the UK. Why is Julian Assange even in the Ecuadorean embassy? In June 2012, the Wikileaks founder fled bail, walked into the embassy, and applied for political asylum to the Ecuadorean government. And he’s stayed there ever since. Assange was on bail because the UK was trying...
In this week’s magazine | Putin’s Wars
A first look at this week’s issue. 5-11 February issuePutin’s Wars Cover story: Putin’s Wars From Ukraine to Syria, Elizabeth Pond on how the Russian strongman overreached. The New Young Fogeys: Is abstinence the ultimate youth rebellion? Eleanor Margolis on Generation Boring and Tim Wigmore on the rise of middle-aged hedonism....
Leader: The new young fogeys
Twenty-two years after Oasis sang, “All I need are cigarettes and alcohol,” the young are abandoning both. Every generation likes to bemoan the excesses and irresponsibility of the young. This should stop. The youth of today – the “new young fogeys”, as we call them – are the best-behaved generation since the social and cultural upheavals of the...
Mass murder by muddle: the connections between the war and the Holocaust
The Holocaust was far from carefully planned, argues David Cesarani. Nazi policies were often “confused, contradictory, half-baked”. David Herman reviews Final Solution: the Fate of the Jews 1933-49 by David Cesarani. Last October, the historian David Cesarani died of a heart attack just weeks after an operation to remove a tumour on his spine....
A very special version of Russian democracy
When asked whether their country is a democracy, Russians struggle to find a comprehensive answer. Russia cannot be understood with mere intellect Or measured by a common yardstick. Russia is so special That you can only believe in it. These famous lines, written by a Russian poet Feodor Tutchev in 1866, are rightfully timeless. Last week an...
Hemmed in at home, Barack Obama turns to the world elsewhere
Like Reagan and Clinton, Obama’s response to entrenched opposition in Congress is to look outwards. Barack Obama gave a strong, comprehensive eighth and final State-of-the-Union address on Tuesday. Brought forward because of the beginning of the forthcoming presidential primary election season to find his successor, Obama’s speech had...
