New Statesman
The New Statesman is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London.[2] Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members of the socialist Fabian Society, such as George Bernard Shaw, who was a founding director. The magazine was founded as a weekly review of politics and literature. The longest-serving editor was Kingsley Martin (1930–1960), and the current editor is Jason Cowley, who assumed the post in 2008.
This article is about the British magazine. For other uses, see New Statesman (disambiguation).Editor
Politics, geopolitics, books and culture and foreign affairs
Weekly
43,230[1]
1913
12 April 1913
New Statesman Media Group
United Kingdom
London
English
Today, the magazine is a print–digital hybrid. According to its present self-description, it has a liberal and progressive political position.[3] Jason Cowley, the magazine's editor, has described the New Statesman as a publication "of the left, for the left"[4] but also as "a political and literary magazine" with "sceptical" politics.
The magazine has recognised and published new writers and critics, as well as encouraged major careers. Its contributors have included John Maynard Keynes, Bertrand Russell, Virginia Woolf, Christopher Hitchens, and Paul Johnson. Historically, the magazine was affectionately referred to as "The Staggers" because of its crises of funding, ownership, and circulation. The nickname is now used as the title of its politics blog.[5]
Circulation was at its highest in the mid-1960s at 93,000.[6] The magazine encountered substantial difficulties in the following decades as readership fell, but it was growing again by the mid-2010s.[7] In 2020, the certified average circulation was 36,591.[1] Traffic to the magazine's website that year reached a new high with 27 million page views and four million distinct users.[8] Associated websites are CityMetric, Spotlight and NewStatesman Tech.[9] In 2018, New Statesman America was launched.
Guest editors[edit]
In March 2009, the magazine had its first guest editor, Alastair Campbell, the former head of communications for Tony Blair. Campbell chose to feature his partner Fiona Millar, Tony Blair (in an article "Why we must all do God"), football manager Alex Ferguson, and Sarah Brown, the wife of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. This editorship was condemned by Suzanne Moore, a contributor to the magazine for twenty years. She wrote in a Mail on Sunday article: "New Statesman fiercely opposed the Iraq war and yet now hands over the reins to someone key in orchestrating that conflict". Campbell responded: "I had no idea she worked for the New Statesman. I don't read the Mail on Sunday. But professing commitment to leftwing values in that rightwing rag lends a somewhat weakened credibility to anything she says."[53]
In September 2009, the magazine was guest-edited by Labour politician Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London.[54]
In October 2010, the magazine was guest-edited by British author and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg. The issue included a previously unpublished poem[55] by Ted Hughes, "Last letter", describing what happened during the three days leading up to the suicide of his first wife, the poet Sylvia Plath. Its first line is: "What happened that night? Your final night."—and the poem ends with the moment Hughes is informed of his wife's death.
In April 2011, the magazine was guest-edited by human rights activist Jemima Khan. The issue featured a series of exclusives including the actor Hugh Grant's secret recording[56] of former News of the World journalist Paul McMullan, and a much-commented-on[57] interview[58] with Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, in which Clegg admitted that he "cries regularly to music" and that his nine-year-old son asked him, "'Why are the students angry with you, Papa?'"
In June 2011, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, created a furore as guest editor by claiming that the Coalition government had introduced "radical, long term policies for which no one had voted" and in doing so had created "anxiety and anger" among many in the country. He was accused of being highly partisan, notwithstanding his having invited Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary to write an article and having interviewed the Foreign Secretary William Hague in the same edition. He also noted that the Labour Party had failed to offer an alternative to what he called "associational socialism". The Statesman promoted the edition on the basis of Williams' alleged attack on the government, whereas Williams himself had ended his article by asking for "a democracy capable of real argument about shared needs and hopes and real generosity".
In December 2011 the magazine was guest-edited by Richard Dawkins. The issue included the writer Christopher Hitchens's final interview,[59] conducted by Dawkins in Texas, and pieces by Bill Gates, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Philip Pullman.
In October 2012 the magazine was guest-edited by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei[60] and, for the first time, published simultaneously in Mandarin (in digital form) and English. To evade China's internet censors, the New Statesman uploaded the issue to file-sharing sites such as BitTorrent. As well as writing that week's editorial,[61] Ai Weiwei interviewed the Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng,[62] who fled to the United States after exposing the use of compulsory abortions and sterilisations. The issue was launched on 19 October 2012 at the Lisson Gallery in London,[63] where speakers including artist Anish Kapoor and lawyer Mark Stephens paid tribute to Ai Weiwei.
In October 2013 the magazine was guest-edited by Russell Brand, with contributions from David Lynch, Noel Gallagher, Naomi Klein, Rupert Everett, Amanda Palmer, and Alec Baldwin,[64] as well as an essay by Brand.[65]
In October 2014, the magazine was guest-edited by the artist Grayson Perry, whose essay titled "Default Man" was widely discussed.
The former British prime minister Gordon Brown guest-edited the magazine in 2016, a special edition exploring Britain's relationship with Europe ahead of the EU referendum. Contributors to the issue included the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and Michael Sandel.
