It ain’t easy being George Clooney In Jay Kelly, the Hollywood smoothie plays an actor very much like himself, albeit longing for a second chance at life

David Allen Green: The BBC is right not to pay damages to Trump

What’s behind Labour’s income tax U-turn? Insiders fear that the government has opted for “all pain, no gain” by dropping a plan to break its manifesto 📫 Today’s Morning Call, with @georgeeaton.bsky.social

Combine a bar, a microwave, a patronising invocation of “craic” and an Irish-sounding name, and you have a thriving business anywhere 🍽️ @finnmcredmond.bsky.social: Around the world in 50 Irish pubs

With Keir Starmer flailing, is Anas Sarwar fighting for his job too?

Why is Jeremy Corbyn being attacked for being a "Zionist"? 🖊️ @meganekenyon.bsky.social

How to fix the internet: break the oligarchy 🖊️ Murtaza Hussain

Would Starmer survive as PM without his chief of staff? 🖊️ Ethan Croft: Morgan McSweeney is losing control

Lewis Goodall: Trump's attack can rescue the BBC The BBC should use the threat of legal action to strike a blow for press freedom 🖊️ @lewisgoodall.com

Is it over for Morgan McSweeney? Even traditional allies of the chief of staff believe Keir Starmer may now sacrifice him. 📫 Today’s Morning Call, with @georgeeaton.bsky.social

New York’s mayor-elect will have to contend with the city’s billionaire class and a hostile president. 🖊️ Ross Barkan: Zohran Mamdani will never be alone

Zack Polanski will be the most powerful man on the left. And Your Party only have themselves to blame. 🖊️ @meganekenyon.bsky.social

Bobby Vylan is feeling sorry for himself At a gig in Kentish Town, the rap frontman reveals an uncomfortable relationship with his present pariah state 🎸 Kate Mossman watches Bob Vylan

PMQs review: Labour briefing wars hand Kemi Badenoch an easy win 🖊️ @RMCunliffe.bsky.social

David Olusoga's empire state of mind 📺 Nicholas Harris on Empire

Who wins from No 10 vs Wes Streeting? Labour MPs warn that Downing Street’s dramatic intervention has only weakened Keir Starmer 📫 Today’s Morning Call, with @georgeeaton.bsky.social

To the delight of Britain’s tabloids, female prison officers keep entering into relationships with the male prisoners in their charge. 🖊️ Ethan Croft: Prison sex stories are a sign of our corrupting state

Rachel Reeves’s left turn 📫 Today’s Morning Call, with @georgeeaton.bsky.social

Will Zarah Sultana ever lead Your Party? She predicts “people” will place “obstacles” in the path of her candidacy 🖊️ @meganekenyon.bsky.social

Dick Cheney’s bastard, by Lee Siegel Donald Trump is his heir, and spawn

Is Donald Trump losing interest in US politics? 🖊️ Freddie Hayward

The BBC is worth fighting for 🖊️ @hannahsbee.bsky.social

Keir Starmer has entered the danger zone Why Labour MPs from all wings are questioning the Prime Minister’s future again. 📫 Today’s Morning Call, with @georgeeaton.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/politics/mor...

She is totally committed, her extraordinary face often seen not just in extreme close-up but right into the iris of the eye, as she departs further and further from reality and her family. Jennifer Lawrence gives everything to Die My Love

The Starmer-McSweeney tendency is sinking Labour. Their tiny faction is dragging social democracy into an abyss. 🖊️ Neal Lawson

Terror definition too broad, Starmer to be told. New advice could undermine the Palestine Action proscription 🖊️ Ethan Croft

The choking porn ban is not enough 🖊️ Arielle Domb

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 By Jason Cowley

"Conventional wisdom says you can’t sell a tax rise." Tom Wright: How to sell a tax rise

Your Party has failed the left. If Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana fumble this opportunity, we cannot forgive them. By Richard Seymour

A lament for clever music Rosalia’s new album Lux is worldly and wonderful. It reminds you of a better time By Kate Mossman

Lucy Powell’s intervention is a sign of trouble ahead on tax and the two-child benefit cap 📫 Today’s Morning Call, with @georgeeaton.bsky.social: Labour’s Budget wars escalate

SNP control-freakery is strangling Scotland. The Nationalists have only extended devolution as far as it suits them.

www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv/2... The happy psychopathy of the Traitors, by @jonnelledge.bsky.social

Why do prisoners keep getting released by mistake?

"If Alex Karp didn’t exist, Peter Thiel would have to invent him." All your data belongs to us: the rise of Palantir, by James Vincent

Exclusive: £7bn housebuilding fund for local mayors

The Green surge is about to break Labour 🖊️ Scarlett Maguire

Should Labour sack Starmer to beat Reform?

How long does Kemi Badenoch have? Just 38 per cent of Brits were able to recognise her in a photograph 🖊️ @RMCunliffe.bsky.social

Nick Fuentes leads Maga into the anti-Semitic gutter. Tucker Carlson has given Fuentes, the far-right provocateur, airtime on one of the biggest platforms in the world.

Reform’s return to Thatcherism. The party’s flirtation with statist economics is fading. 📫 Today’s Morning Call, with @georgeeaton.bsky.social

Why CD Rose won the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize for fiction, by @SimonOkotie.bsky.social

Tice was introduced as “a local man” and a “self-made entrepreneur”, which is certainly one way to describe a man who spent 14 years as the CEO of his grandfather’s property company. @willdunn.bsky.social's sketch: Richard Tice’s pitch to Tory Middle England

How Guy Fawkes became the patron saint of British fascism

Why CD Rose won the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize for fiction

Wes Streeting on “scandalous” failings in Oxford maternity care Following our investigation into maternity services at Oxford University Hospitals trust, the Health Secretary said it pointed to a “moral failure” By @hannahsbee.bsky.social

David Lammy’s first PMQs as deputy prime minister will be remembered for a question that wasn't even part of the actual session. Did the government know that a police manhunt had been launched for an asylum seeker wrongly released from HMP Wandsworth last week? @RMCunliffe.bsky.social

Zohran Mamdani’s lessons for Labour The socialist’s victory shows the power of cost-of-living issues 🖊️ @georgeeaton.bsky.social

The vindication of V for Vendetta