Section: New Statesman (The United Kingdom)
Mike Pompeo does not like answering questions about his actions but soon he may have to
There’s a sense that things are coming full circle for the US secretary of state. The important thing to understand about Mike Pompeo, Trump’s second and current secretary of state, is that, although he became famous for demanding answers, he treats questions posed to him with scorn. Pompeo became a member of the House of...
Letter of the week: In search of a national story
A selection of the best letters received from our readers this week. Email [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine. In promoting internationalism above the national politics of “home, belonging and identity”, Jeremy Cliffe will repeat the mistakes of the defeated Remain and People’s Vote...
Americans are drinking bleach because of Trump – and still Republicans stand by him
Senators continue to insist that the problem is anything but Trump. “Speaking of Mitch, what’s gotten into him?” Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, said on 24 April, in reference to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell. “The president is asking people to inject Lysol into their lungs and Mitch is saying that...
Coronavirus and the language of war
We are using the language of conflict to talk about the current pandemic. There are many parallels, but the comparison is not exact. Are we at war with Covid-19? The everyday language used to describe the pandemic suggests this is the case. It is portrayed as a battle against a cruel enemy that must be defeated. At the “front line”, healthcare...
Why we need “informational distancing” during the coronavirus crisis
Stepping back and taking time to consider the media we consume could help to slow the spread of misinformation about the pandemic. The World Health Organisation recently launched a WhatsApp chatbot to inform the world about coronavirus. It links users to reports on the latest case count, explains proper hygiene techniques, and debunks the...
How the coronavirus crisis echoes Europe’s 19th-century cholera pandemic
The same divisions of opinion that played such a fateful role in Hamburg in 1892 are with us today. As the world struggles to come to terms with coronavirus and think about its possible consequences, not least in the long term, we might ask whether there are any lessons or warnings we can take from the previous history of pandemics. Infections...
Why we are living in JG Ballard’s world
The visionary English novelist’s dystopian imagination, defined by cataclysmic events, quarantines and technological isolation, has never felt so prescient. There are certain writers who, once you’ve read them, forever take possession of some part of your experience of the world. If you’re enduring sustained exposure to a...
The crisis of the liberal zombie order
Since the attacks of 9/11, progressives have endured a series of profound shocks – but coronavirus looks like a new and more disturbing portent. For the liberal optimism that has been under assault since 11 September, 2001, the coronavirus pandemic is another rattling blow. The late-1990s vision of a world progressing steadily towards global...
Mr Jones: how a Welsh journalist exposed the horror of Stalin’s Ukraine famines
A new film on the Soviet-era tragedy resonates powerfully in an age of political deceit. As a child in California, the author Andrea Chalupa heard from her grandfather a tale of two journalists. One was Gareth Jones, the young Welshman who, in March 1933, exposed the extent of Stalin’s man-made famine in Ukraine between 1932 and 1933....
How the EU can survive Brexit
There are tensions between Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel – but unless France and Germany can work together the bloc will fragment. Britain’s departure from the European Union ends an arduous two years and ten months since 29 March 2017, when Theresa May’s government invoked Article 50 to give notice that it would withdraw. During...
