Editor-in-chief Jason Cowley Head of Digital David Tomchak Deputy Editor Tom Gatti International Editor Jeremy Cliffe Political Editor Stephen Bush US Editor Emily Tamkin Creative Editor Gerry Brakus Business Editor Will Dunn Associate Editor Michael Prodger Senior Online Editor George Eaton Online Editor, International India Bourke Culture Editor Anna Leszkiewicz Features Editor Kate Mossman Special Projects Editor Alona Ferber Britain Editor Anoosh Chakelian Commissioning Editors Gavin Jacobson Lola Seaton Special Correspondents Harry Lambert Sophie McBain Political Correspondent Ailbhe Rea International Correspondent Ido Vock Head of Production Peter Williams Chief Sub-Editor Pippa Bailey Senior Sub-Editor Indra Warnes Sub-Editors Christiana Bishop Katherine Cowles Designer Emily Black Social Media Editor Eleanor Peake Digital Culture Writer Sarah Manavis Culture Assistant Ellen Peirson-Hagger Editorial Assistant Emily Bootle Contributing Writers John Bew Philip Collins Chris Deerin Edward Docx Matthew Engel Martin Fletcher John Gray Helen Lewis Shiraz Maher Paul Mason Adrian Pabst David Reynolds Leo Robson Brendan Simms Ed Smith Amelia Tait Johanna Thomas-Corr Helen Thompson Erica Wagner Rowan Williams

Contents Free thinking since 1913

Divided we fall: Jeremy Cliffe on America’s test 20

Head down: Simon Heffer on a crisis in government 30

Up Front

3 Leader 10 Correspondence

Columns

7 Jason Cowley on Boris Johnson’s failures in office 9 Stephen Bush on how voters exposed anti-Semitism in the Corbyn era 19 Philip Collins on why Keir Starmer needs to crack Labour’s “business problem” 23 Emily Tamkin on how the presidential election failed a nation craving certainty 29 Helen Thompson on the Sino-American energy rivalry 35 Louise Perry on how OnlyFans became the porn industry’s lockdown winner 36 Jonathan Liew asks why F1 champion Lewis Hamilton is so widely disliked

Observations

12 In the Picture 13 Comment: Salley Vickers on the case against lockdown 14 Commons Confidential: Kevin Maguire The pick of the best gossip from Westminster 16 Encounter: George Eaton meets the professor and Scottish government Covid-19 adviser Devi Sridhar

Articles

20 Jeremy Cliffe on an election that has left America more divided than ever 24 Simon Heffer on a crisis of statesmanship in British government 30 Robert Colls on sport and belonging

The Critics: Books

38 Ray Monk on a major new biography of the pioneering geneticist and communist sympathiser JBS Haldane 41 The NS Poem “Mist on the Curragh” by Steven O’Brien 42 Sophie McBain on what Christie Tate’s memoir Group tells us about the complex appeal of therapy 44 Simon Kuper compares two studies of the pitfalls of meritocracy by David Goodhart and Michael Sandel 46 NS Recommends Some of the best new reading 47 Ido Vock on Caste by Isabel Wilkinson, an examination of American racism and inequality

New Statesman Vol 149, No 5545 ISSN 1364-7431 USPS 382260

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