New Statesman

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Not to be confused with The New Statesman, a late '80s/early '90s satire of the Conservative government.


The New Statesman is a weekly left-of-center politics and culture magazine and website. Ever since its foundation the magazine has been plagued with bad financial luck, fluctuating circulation numbers and crises of ownership so much so that it earned the nickname "The Staggers".

Title[edit | edit source]

Statesman was founded on 12 April 1913 by Sidney and Beatrice Webb with the support of George Bernard Shaw and other prominent members of the Fabian Society. In 1931 the magazine merged with the Liberal weekly The Nation and Athenaeum and changed its name to the New Statesman and Nation. In 1964, the magazine dropped the last part of the title and became the New Statesman as it is known to this day.

History[edit | edit source]

2009 front page from Alastair Campbell's time as editor.

The Pro-Stalin Years[edit | edit source]

In the 1930s, Kingsley Martin - the then editor of the magazine - came out strongly in favour of the Soviet Union. This did not sit well with a lot of people, in particular, John Maynard Keynes who worked for the magazine. Keynes wrote a review of Martin's work arguing in favour of the Soviet Union, arguing that Martin was "a little too full perhaps of good will" towards Stalin. Martin allowed the article to be printed, but a short while later printed an interview with Stalin by H. G. Wells. A series of articles followed from each side of the argument, making it seem like the publication was more interested in arguing with each other than making any progress for leftist politics in general[1]. The magazine refused to publish work by George Orwell because he was too critical of Stalin, and Martin refused to let his reported review Leon Trotsky's work because it was anti-Stalin. But the publication eventually distanced itself from the Soviet Union when Satin decided to form an alliance with Hitler. All this scandal brought a great deal of readership to the magazine, because even 80 years ago people loved to rubberneck leftwing wank - at its height the magazine had a circulation of over 70,000, a feat which would never be seen again in the magazine's history.

Wilderness Years[edit | edit source]

Martin left the publication in the 1960s. A series of editors saw readership numbers collapse, funds try up and the magazine's sway within the Labour Party diminish significantly. It remained a leftist critic of everything governments of any party were doing, but most had stopped listening. The acquisition of smaller leftwing magazines like Marxism Today in 1991 was an attempt to corner the market but failed to bring in any sort of sustained readership.

Saved by New Labour[edit | edit source]

The New Statesman was taken over by Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson[2] in 1996. Those left-wing reporters and staff that hadn't already resigned over the take-over were fired and Robinson hired a former editor of The Independent to head up the magazine. Almost overnight the publication became a pro-Blairite magazine.

There was an inevitable backlash against the new stance and the following editor tried to take the paper leftwards again. This went as well as everything else the the New Statesman's history had gone, as the paper decided that "left wing" meant "add more antisemitism". It then failed to recognise the authority of the National Union of Journalists, despite the fact that most of its reporting staff were members of the trade union. By that point even Geoffrey Robinson couldn't take it anymore and sold the magazine.

Guest Editors[edit | edit source]

In a bid to improve circulation, the magazine embarked on a series of guest editors, the first of which was Alastair Campbell who spent most of the publication talking about how amazing Tony Blair really is, getting his partner Fiona Millar to talk about how amazing Tony Blair is and bringing Gordon Brown's wife Sarah in for "balance". This caused a lot of criticism from within the staff of the magazine and much lols everywhere else. Other guest editors include Ken Livingstone, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Dawkins and Russel Brand.

Scandals[edit | edit source]

In 1993, the magazine was sued by then Prime Minister John Major after it published an article that discussed rumours that Major was having an extramarital affair with a Downing Street caterer. Although the action was settled out of court, the magazine's legal costs almost led to its closure. In 1995 the magazine became one of the first political magazines to have an online version of its content.

More recently the magazine has come under criticism for comparing the action of student unions to decide to not invite transphobic reporters (some of which publish frequently at the New Statesman) to debates to the actions of totalitarianism. The publication has also been criticised by sex-workers for using their experiences as disposable click-bait opinion pieces rather then actual journalism that it promised them it was going to produce.

By 2012, the magazine had a circulation grand total of 24,910, an improvement on the previous two years by almost 2,000, a major success in the magazine's history.

Contributors[edit | edit source]

The New Statesman is important in lolitics because of a few very important contributors to the magazine[3]. These include:

  • Owen Jones, the ever-youthful lefty firebrand who is possibly in love with Jeremy Corbyn
  • Mehdi Hasan, biographer of Ed Miliband who is definitely in love with the former Labour leader
  • Will Self, a "comedian" who sometimes makes jokes and appears on Question Time

References[edit | edit source]

  1. an accusation which the paper has never truly lived down
  2. He of the infamous Mandelson home loan
  3. We tend to ignore the rest most of the time