Editor-in-chief Jason Cowley Deputy Editor Tom Gatti International Editor Jeremy Cliffe Managing Editor Will Dunn Political Editor Stephen Bush Associate Editor Michael Prodger Creative Editor Gerry Brakus Features Editor Kate Mossman Culture Editor Anna Leszkiewicz Special Projects Editor Alona Ferber Britain Editor Anoosh Chakelian Culture Assistant Ellen Peirson-Hagger Senior Online Editor George Eaton Commissioning Editor Gavin Jacobson Special Correspondent Harry Lambert Political Correspondents Patrick Maguire Ailbhe Rea Head of Production Peter Williams Chief Sub-Editor Pippa Bailey Senior Sub-Editor Indra Warnes Social Media Editor Eleanor Peake Digital Culture Writer Sarah Manavis Editorial Assistant Emily Bootle
Contributing Writers John Bew Chris Deerin Matthew Engel Martin Fletcher John Gray Shiraz Maher Paul Mason Sophie McBain Adrian Pabst David Reynolds Leo Robson Brendan Simms Ed Smith Amelia Tait Johanna Thomas-Corr Erica Wagner Rowan Williams Head of Marketing Charlotte Mullock 0808 284 9422 Marketing Manager Alfred Jahn
Commercial Director Dominic Rae 020 7406 6758
Contents Free thinking since 1913
Swimming with sharks: Downing Street’s power brokers 22 Thunberg alone: how one teenager took on the world 32
Up Front
Observations
3 Leader 10 Correspondence
Columns
12 In the Picture 13 Comment: Michael Barrett on what the UK can do to prevent coronavirus spreading 14 Commons Confidential: Kevin Maguire The pick of the best gossip from Westminster 16 Encounter: Ivo Dawnay meets the US satirist PJ O’Rourke 18 First Thoughts: Peter Wilby on Priti Patel at the Home Office, and the rural charms of Essex
7 Stephen Bush on how the coronavirus crisis will test Boris Johnson’s leadership 9 Jeremy Cliffe on what the epidemic reveals about the state of globalisation 19 Rachel Reeves writes this week’s Diary 21 Megan Nolan on her mixed feelings over Harvey Weinstein’s upcoming prison sentence 38 Jonathan Liew laments the gentrification of chicken shops 22 Harry Lambert on the group of advisers shaping the New
Articles
Right agenda from inside No 10 30 Ed Platt examines how the floods have divided Britain 32 Martin Fletcher on how Greta Thunberg’s climate crisis campaign went from a solitary sit-in to a global force
The Critics: Books
40 Paul Collier on why the fêted economist Thomas Piketty does not have all the answers 42 Rowan Williams assesses The Mirror and the Light, the final volume of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy 44 Sophie McBain on Sally Howard’s The Home Stretch and the politics of housework 46 Frances Wilson on Sylvia Topp’s Eileen, a biography of George Orwell’s first wife 47 Alan Johnson praises Pete Paphides’s Broken Greek, a memoir of a childhood salvaged by music 49 Ailbhe Rea on Kate Fall’s The Gatekeeper, an eyewitness account of David Cameron and his Notting Hill set in government
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4 | NEW STATESMAN | 6-12 MARCH 2020
