Edward Docx News Today

How many of us occupy a liminal realm between life and death? And how many can pick their own way forward?

In this week’s newsletter: While the Roy family are set for one more boardroom battle and Barry bows out, the stakes are higher than ever for TV’s big finales

In today's letters, our readers discuss Skye being a 'remote' location, Nicola Sturgeon's anti-tory comments and anti-oil protest.

In places where people are absent, our absence is an aberration and should be actively addressed, writes Matt Cross.

If an appliance breaks down in the Highlands and Islands, does it make a sound? Yes, writes Fiona Rintoul, because there are plenty of people living there.

Living in Scotland, I am deeply concerned about the gender recognition reform bill: any dissenting views are shouted down as ‘transphobic’

Britain elects clown as prime minister. Clown attends parties. Circus turns on clown. What does clown do next?

Our 20 favourite pieces of the year

BORIS STARLING: Last year female writers accounted for 57 per cent of hardback fiction bestsellers and 62 per cent of paperbacks. Up-and-coming male novelists are few and far between.

The story of 2020 in New Statesman covers Including Gary Younge on systemic racism, Timothy Snyder on the US’s “politics of pain” and our special issue on how the UK failed over Covid-19.    21 February: The age of pandemics: coronavirus and the geopolitics of disease In the early days of the Covid outbreak, the science writer Laura Spinney looked back to the 1918 flu epidemic. After 50 million were killed, new global organisations were created to fight infection – but in an age of...