This Week's Magazine

From the New Statesman team

12 April 2013

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From this week, here is a selection of our favourites…

The hollow centre of British politics By Rafael Behr
The Queen of Versailles - review By Ryan Gilbey
A goddess-shaped hole in Naomi Wolf's new work By Helen Lewis

Editor’s Note: A long and not always smooth history
Melvyn Bragg has described how he discovered the New Statesman in the library of his grammar school in Wigton, Cumbria, and how it opened for him a window on the “Great World”.

Staggers envy, being rejected by Martin Amis, and why the left hated Maggie so much
I used to be petrified of the Staggers. I mean it.

Labour must search for answers and not merely aspire to be a repository for people’s anger

Ed Miliband: "The biggest enemy is not enthusiasm for the Conservatives"
The early-afternoon train from Ipswich to Cambridge is quiet enough for Ed Miliband’s entourage to sprawl across several rows of seats.

Culture

Reviewed: BioShock Infinite
Strip an excellent first-person shooter video game down to its core and you find two components: great gameplay and a well-told story.

Film

Reviewed: The Place Beyond the Pines
The Place Beyond the Pines (15)
dir: Derek Cianfrance

Commons Confidential

Commons Confidential: Liz, Dave and Eddie
The privileged background of David Cameron, the benefit axeman, has guaranteed the Prime Minister a cushy life in a different Britain from the one that is experienced by the victim