Nicholas Harris

The Budget: our writers’ verdicts Louise Haigh, Faiza Shaheen, James Meadway and others respond to the Chancellor

The two child cap news is big for MPs and more importantly for the country.

But will the budget as a whole boost Starmer over the longer term amongst his discontented ranks? Personally I doubt it.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

The Budget: our writers’ verdicts Louise Haigh, Faiza Shaheen, James Meadway and others respond to the Chancellor

Some astute budget commentary here from @parth0.bsky.social, @ruthcurtice.bsky.social, @meadwaj.bsky.social, @louisehaighmp.bsky.social, and @morganj0nes.bsky.social

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Anthony Barnett: “The Sixties were a catastrophic failure” The writer and campaigner on nationalism, the rise of the new right and how a fractured left can organise in response

Lovely interview with Anthony Barnett www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Britain’s Fawlty state of mind Fifty years after it was first aired, Fawlty Towers now looks ahead of its time

"There are authentic shivers of the 1970s, now buried deep in the British nervous system"

Really enjoyed this on Fawlty Towers by @nickpaulharris.bsky.social:

Britain’s Fawlty state of mind Fifty years after it was first aired, Fawlty Towers now looks ahead of its time

“Modern British comedy should thank Fawlty Towers the way poets thank spring: that’s where it all begins”

On Fawlty Towers and the invention of a national sense of humour, for the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social: www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv/2...

How to save British liberalism The post-liberalism of the past decade has been revealed as a fantasy

This is quite something folks: John Gray, against and after postliberalism, today on the New Statesman: www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/1...

Thatcher-land One hundred years after it gave us Margaret Thatcher, what is left of the Grantham she knew?

‘There is a darker though equally Thatcherite story to tell about Grantham’

Returning to Thatcher-land, a century after her birth, today at the New Statesman: www.newstatesman.com/politics/con...

What did Mrs Thatcher do to us? Less a prime minister than a monarch, the Tory leader’s real legacy was stasis

On this day the infant that would become Mrs Thatcher emerged to make her first demands upon our world, six months later... www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-... (thanks @nickpaulharris.bsky.social & @willoyd.bsky.social )

What did Mrs Thatcher do to us? Less a prime minister than a monarch, the Tory leader’s real legacy was stasis

'Yet the heart of the Thatcher project was to renew what is still the cause of our country’s downfall.'

@anthonybarnett.bsky.social on the centenary of Margaret Thatcher, for the New Statesman: www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

What did Mrs Thatcher do to us? Less a prime minister than a monarch, the Tory leader’s real legacy was stasis

'Yet the heart of the Thatcher project was to renew what is still the cause of our country’s downfall.'

@anthonybarnett.bsky.social on the centenary of Margaret Thatcher, for the New Statesman: www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Thank you sir

Harris + Partridge = essential reading

A point in favour of Late Partridge is the books, there is a line in Big Beacon that was so good a fellow train passenger asked if I was okay

Alan Partridge’s late style Can a national joke survive when it’s also trying to become a national treasure?

“Can a national joke survive when it’s also trying to become a national treasure?”

On the late style of Alan Partridge, in this week’s New Statesman: www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv/2...

Nigel Farage really means it this time At Reform Conference, his “people’s army” formed a long, gloating parade.

‘Starmerism, as a political creed and a historical era, appears to have entered its ebb-tide without ever crashing onto the beach.’

At and on the Reform conference, for the @newstatesman.com: www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Douglas Carswell has sunk to the gutter The former MP is far from the only Brit to be sent into a rage spiral by watching X.

My piece on Douglas Carswell's journey from blue-sky thinking to the gutter:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

The rage of Dominic Cummings Britain’s rogue intellectual has predicted a civil war. Is he also cheerleading one?

For the @newstatesman.com i profiled Dominic Cummings – a case study in elite radicalisation
www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/0...

Thanks James

Cheers Anoosh!

The rebuilding of Tommy Robinson The EDL founder has conquered the “alternative” media sphere.

‘The tone is established with the seventh word of Kisin’s introduction: “mate”.’

Written about Tommy Robinson’s appearance on Triggernometry: www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Who’s afraid of YouTube Man? Screen culture isn’t dystopia – it’s revelation.

Written about YouTube, YouTube Man, and the tremendous cultural significance of an episode of Question Time from June 2007: www.newstatesman.com/politics/med...

Mrs Thatcher’s bastards In her centenary year, Maggie’s political and intellectual heirs still yearn for the smack of firm leadership.

‘Who the hell dug up this guy and invited him to pronounce, in his dunce cap of humiliation, on the future of British politics’?

On Neil Hamilton, David Starkey, Thatcher and Thatcherism for this week’s @newstatesman.com sketch: www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Thomas Skinner’s full English A Tory MP, a Brexiteer historian, a Reform clown and a reality-TV star walk into an auditorium…

I went to watch Thomas Skinner’s political crossover event this week for the @newstatesman.com www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Meet the Blue Labour bros Inside the ideological faction remaking the party and the government.

In Westminster, a Blue Labour staff network has been set up.

I spoke to the earnest (mostly) young (mostly) men of the tendency about their politics, plans and why they really just want to have a big chat:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Dominic Cummings: oracle of the new British berserk The political visions of Westminster’s most influential intellectual are wracked by elemental forces.

‘Cassandra in tracksuit bottoms’

Greatly enjoyed watching the Dominic Cummings live show in Oxford last week, for the @newstatesman.com: www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Robert Jenrick is embarrassing himself His fare-dodger vigilante antics prove that he has become a mouthpiece of the Online Right.

'“Seriously, why don’t you go back to the barrier and pay,” says the 43-year-old MP for Newark, newly Ozempicked into the form of an Inbetweener.'

@morganj0nes.bsky.social on great form in this piece on Robert Jenrick's bizarre vigilante antics: www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Neo-Nazi safari How close can any journalist get to the English far right?

"The kind of impotence that longs desperately for prepotence"

I enjoyed, with some reservations, Harry Shukman's new book on the British far right, which I wrote about for the @newstatesman.com: www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

"Even he cannot combine book-keeper and sans-culotte forever."

Went along to see Nigel Farage's latest political mutation today for the @newstatesman.com

Why George Osborne still runs Britain Austerity was a radical economic experiment – but 15 years on, it has become the new orthodoxy.

"This remains a Britain shaped by Osborne and Cameron: an economy growing on precarious jobs and asset prices, while the public realm rots."

A first-rate cover story this week by @willdunn.bsky.social on George Osborne, the author of broken Britain: www.newstatesman.com/cover-story/...

Edward St Aubyn’s comedy of horrors The Patrick Melrose novels and his other works are clearly by the same writer – but produce wildly different results.

‘Reading these novels is like watching a world-class chef working while drunk, skidding around the kitchen and capsizing saucepans’

I wrote about the highs and lows of Edward St Aubyn for this week’s @newstatesman.com: www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

What is Nigel Farage thinking now? Enoch Powell is his political hero. But Farage will never be his heir.

‘The impulses of Powellism – escapism, paranoia, nativism – are alive and well. Its political ambition is not.’

In the wake of these local elections, read Oliver Eagleton’s first-class essay on Farage, Farageism and its ancestors: www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/0...