The New Statesman Podcast, Subscriber Only Edition

Every story, they say, needs a beginning, a middle and an end; every story needs a setting.

What if that isn't true? Can you write when everything is in flux, when you are unmoored from places, and when the time is out of joint?

Tanjil Rashid is joined by Amit Chaudhuri, a singer, composer, poet, critic and novelist, to discuss how a story is less important – and less interesting – than the movement of life.

At this week's Labour conference, Andy Burnham announced bigger and bolder policy ambitions than anyone expected. Was this too big a swing? Or the grand vision the country needs?

Elsewhere, next Thursday, there is a by-election happening in Holborn and St Pancras, the seat vacated by Keir Starmer.

Oli Dugmore is joined by business editor Will Dunn and political correspondent Megan Kenyon to discuss.

In Japan, couples can rent a grandchild in order to make them feel less bereft on special occasions. In South Korea, dog stroller sales have overtaken pram sales. And in France, deaths outnumbered births for the first time since the Second World War in 2025. So what's actually going on?

Award winning journalist Camilla Cavendish joins Oli Dugmore to discuss her new book, Generation Maybe: Why We're Having Fewer Children, and What It Means for Us All.

Labour Conference 2026 draws to a close with Andy Burnham's speech.

The PM's announcements included scrapping the triple lock pension, electoral reform, a new help-to-buy scheme, Great British Grid, an end to the public ownership ban on water companies and a range of options for our relationship with Europe which he will be looking into.

Anoosh Chakelian is at the Labour Conference and is joined by Ethan Croft and Ailbhe Rea to discuss.

The Chancellor gives his conference speech just four weeks before his first budget and Andy Burnham proposes a national care service in England. 

Anoosh Chakelian, Ailbhe Rea and Ethan Croft bring you the latest from the Labour Conference. 

The rise of balaclava Britain, Kemi Badenoch's billionaire baloney and Donald Trump's AI rebrand. 

Anoosh Chakelian and Will Dunn discuss the stories of the week.

📚 READ: 

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2026/09/ed-davey-has-a-superpower-immunity-from-embarrassment

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/bursting-the-bubble/2026/09/the-rise-of-balaclava-britain 

https://www.newstatesman.com/business/economics/2026/09/kemi-badenochs-billionaire-baloney 

"We live in a world that deserves unicorns," says Katherine Rundell.

If you haven't come across Rundell's work yet, you will soon. She's written over a dozen books, including an award-winning biography of John Donne and the children's fantasy series Impossible Creatures - a copy of which every Year 6 child in the country will receive this Christmas. Disney has just signed a seven-figure deal for the screen adaptation.. Rundell is being touted as the next JK Rowling.

When she's not writing Rundell works on Renaissance literature as a fellow of Oxford University.

Two themes recur throughout her work: fantasy and animals. And ...

For this week's New Statesman, our Politics Show stars have been busy interviewing some key players in the past year of Labour turmoil.

Ailbhe Rea, our Political Editor, had a fascinating encounter with the MP and former chief secretary to the Prime Minister, the Starmer loyalist Darren Jones.

And speaking of Andy Burnham, Tom McTague, our Editor-in-Chief, has been busy profiling the Prime Minister himself…

Owen Jones burst onto the scene in 2011 with his bestselling book Chavs: the demonisation of the working class. Since then his activism and journalism has followed the ebbs and flows of the left in UK politics, his own push and pull relationship with the Labour Party - which he ultimately left in 2024. 

Now he wants to cast his analysis beyond Britain. He joins Oli Dugmore in this episode to discuss his new book The Fall of the West: how they really lost it. 

Are tech companies turning apocalypse into profit?

In 2022, we were all having fun with a new chatbot called ChatGPT. Meanwhile, ministers and civil servants of the British government were imagining how it might go horribly wrong. 

Four years ago, AI experts were concerned about what people might do using their technology. Today, they fear what the technology is doing on its own, without being asked.

Tom McTague is joined by Will Dunn to discuss his cover story.

READ: https://www.newstatesman.com/business/2026/09/will-ai-kill-us-all

A third of British adults who used to read for pleasure don't anymore.

And according to the OECD, literacy itself, not just the habit of it, is declining or stagnating across most of the developed world.

In a new book, The New Dark Ages, James Marriott argues that we're living through a great unwinding: a retreat from the written word and the kind of rational, analytical mind that print culture built over five centuries, back towards something closer to the pre-literate world: one dominated not by books, but by images, screens, an...

Reform UK received two £36 million donations from crypto billionaire Ben Delo. This has sent shockwaves through Westminster and thrown the question of political finance reform into sharp relief.

Labour is caught in an uncomfortable bind - appalled by the scale of Reform's fundraising, but reluctant to cap donations in a way that could threaten trade union funding and destabilise its own finances.

The fallout from Reform's latest scandal, John Healey's first major speech as Chancellor and Ukraine's plan to tax porn stars.

Anoosh Chakelian and Will Dunn discuss the stories of the week.

Read: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2026/09/the-gospel-according-to-nigel-paul-farage

Terror has sought Salman Rushdie out time and time again for the past 40 years, ever since the controversial publication of his novel The Satanic Verses and the furious response to it from much of the Muslim world.

He believed that his life of extreme measures and isolation was a closed chapter in 1998, after Iran stepped back from the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini. But four summers ago, in a quiet lake town in New York, death came knocking again. Rushdie was about to give a public lecture when a man ran on stage and attacked h...

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has unveiled the biggest reset in UK relations with Israel for decades, and, in typical fashion, is putting his stamp on his new role.

Meanwhile, the scandal surrounding Reform and their finances continues, with the Met Police announcing they are launching a criminal investigation.

Pippa Bailey is joined by Ailbhe Rea, and guest Ben Judah, to discuss.

Fuchsia Dunlop has dedicated much of her life to eating Chinese food. If you're interested in Chinese cuisine and culture, you may have come across her through television programmes, heard her on the radio, or cooked one of her recipes. And if you haven't, stick around and you'll be tempted to dive a little deeper into this extraordinary world. Fuchsia joined Oli Dugmore on the day her latest book, Five Tastes, was published, to talk about the flavours that define Chinese food, what they reveal about an ancient culture, and the political and economic factors changing Chinese cuisine...

Labour's missing money metaphor, the millionaires still getting benefits and Dyson's £420 toothbrush. 

Anoosh Chakelian is joined by Will Dunn to round up the stories of the week.

READ: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/bursting-the-bubble/2026/09/andy-burnham-cant-explain-the-economy

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2026/09/britain-must-stop-paying-benefits-to-millionaires 

Historical fantasy, campus satire, industry exposé; five books in, and no one's quite worked out what a "RF Kuang novel" is supposed to look like. That's rather the point.

This September she publishes her sixth: Taipei Story, a semi-autobiographical account of a summer spent learning Mandarin in Taiwan - her most personal book yet.

She joins Tanjil Rashid in this episode of the podcast.

This week was Andy Burnham's first in the Commons as Prime Minister, facing his inaugural head to head with Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

As for the Tories, they have undergone a major reshuffle.

Anoosh Chakelian is joined by Ailbhe Rea and Tom McTague.

From the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the current escalation of the war between Israel, Palestine and their neighbouring countries, the Middle East has been besieged by almost constant conflict.

Is it history? Politics? Resources? Or religion driving these tensions?

Tanjil Rashid is joined by historian and author Simon Sebag Montefiore, whose new book The Cauldron tells the story of the making of the modern Middle East.

Alexei Sayle has never much cared for a conventional view of the world.

Born in 1950s Liverpool to committed communist parents, he was named after Maxim Gorky - real name Alexei Maximovich Peshkov. Dyed-in-the-wool Marxism, in other words, was baked in from birth, and he's Jewish on his mother's side. 

His first two memoirs, Stalin Ate My Homework and Thatcher Stole My Trousers, told the story of that red upbringing. Now Sayle is back with volume three: How I've Tried to Change the World, exploring a lifetime of protests, marches, and wha...

The investigation into Nigel's "Farage Fest" election party, Andy Burnham's Ukrainian jam session and Pope Leo XIV making it onto Vanity Fair's best dressed list.

Anoosh Chakelian and Will Dunn round up the stories of the week.

It's nearly a year since Zack Polanski took the reins of the Green party. 

In many ways the party has never been so successful – with five MPs, leading six local authorities and a leader who cuts through with the public. 

But now the Greens have to contend with a new – and relatively popular – Prime Minister, and internal factions within the party threaten to make life difficult for Polanski as he heads towards the summer conference.

How is the Green leader faring one year on?

Anoosh Chake...

One of the first big decisions of Andy Burnham's premiership is looming: whether to drill for North Sea oil and gas. 

Labour made a manifesto promise not to grant new licences for oil and gas exploration, but the question of whether to go ahead and drill at the Rosebank and Jackdaw sites - offshore oil and gas fields that have pre-existing licences - remains.

After a summer of wildfires and heatwaves, but with our energy security and cost-of-living precarious, the new Prime Minister faces a political dilemma.

Anoosh Chakelian is joined by political e...

What constitutes a wealthy society, Richard Tice saying we should "enjoy" climate change and the clamour around Harry and Meghan's return to the UK. 

Anoosh Chakelian and Oli Dugmore discuss the stories of the week.

Charlotte Higgins has spent most of her career interviewing and critiquing artists, authors and poets as the Guardian's chief culture writer. It was unlikely that her work would ever take her to a warzone.

But following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she found herself drawn to this country under siege. She wanted to ask, what happens to art under war? And could Ukrainian culture not just survive, but flourish?

On the one hand, Burnham may never be as popular as he is now. On the other, the PM could lose an election if he calls it soon, bringing his long-held dream of being prime minister to a horribly premature end.

Anoosh Chakelian is joined by political editor Ailbhe Rea.

In 2011, Luke Harding was ordered to leave Russia - the first Western journalist to be exiled since the fall of the Soviet Union. As the Guardian's senior correspondent, he continued to watch Russia from afar, covering WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden, and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. But in recent years he crept back closer to Moscow, reporting from the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

His new book, Betrayal, follows the many contours of this conflict and what they tell us about the new age of global power: What kind of control does Russia have o...

After its victory in Clacton, Reform has announced plans to slash the welfare state.

Over the weekend, Robert Jenrick claimed a Reform government would cut £50 billion from the welfare bill, excluding foreign nationals from most benefits.

Meanwhile, a parliamentary investigation into Nigel Farage's finances has resumed, after he was found to have accepted a £5 million gift from billionaire Christopher Harborne.

Anoosh Chakelian is joined by political editor Ailbhe Rea.

Labour overtaking Reform in opinion polls for the first time in over a year, travel chaos for government ministers and the controversial grave of Dobby the house-elf. 

Anoosh Chakelian is joined by Oli Dugmore to discuss the stories of the week.

Sorry about all the bangs, things got a little crazy at Clacton Leisure Centre.

After a long and fairly ridiculous night, Nigel Farage has been reinstated as MP for Clacton. What happens now? Could it be another by-election?

Anoosh Chakelian is joined by senior data journailst and Labour councillor, Ben Walker.

Clacton is heading for a by-election on Thursday, triggered by Nigel Farage, amidst the Reform leader's financial scandals.

Anoosh Chakelian spends the day in Clacton, getting the perspective of locals.

Andy Burnham's vision – to reground the Labour party in a sense of place, tradition and belonging – began over a decade ago, rising from the rubble of the Blair and Brown years. 

Off the back of the party's 2010 defeat, figures now key to his government argued that Labour had become too centralised; too detached from working class voters.

Now, Burnham wants to revive "community" as both a value and a means of reforming the UK.

Is this the era of "Woke Blue Labour"?

Anoosh Chakelian is joined by editor-in-chief Tom McTague.

Re...

Is supporting North Sea drilling an extremist position? Does Jeremy Clarkson have the right to ask benefit claimants for a thank you note? And should you grass on naughty neighbours breaking the hosepipe ban?

Anoosh Chakelian is joined by Oli Dugmore to discuss some of the biggest questions of the week.

📚 READ

Supporting North Sea drilling is an extremist position

https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2026/07/north-sea-drilling-is-an-extremist-position

The road to Nowhereville

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2026/07/the-road-to-nowhereville

In the summer of 2024, riots tore through British towns, and since then old questions have continued to resurface about who belongs in the country.

Taj Ali has spent years digging into a history that's rarely told in full: the long tradition of South Asian political activism in Britain.

His debut book, Come What May, We're Here to Stay, traces that tradition and asks what it means for Britain now.

Taj Ali joins Tanjil Rashid.

Why did Kemi Badenoch allow a man with a neo-Nazi past to stand as a council candidate? Is Andy Burnham running into his first bump in the road as Prime Minister over his pausing of the early release of prisoners scheme? And could Reform and Restore set aside their differences and form a pact?

Anoosh Chakelian is joined by political correspondent Ethan Croft.

For ten years Gianni Infantino has run FIFA more or less unchallenged - cosying up to Putin, the Saudis, and above all Trump, and turning the World Cup into the most commercially aggressive tournament the sport has ever seen. 

Then a few weeks ago, it emerged he'd been secretly negotiating to sell a fifth of FIFA's business to outside investors for $20 billion. The plan collapsed within days, under a revolt from football associations around the world.

For some time, Zack Polanski's tenure as Green Party leader had been largely characterised as a success. 

But he's been having a turbulent time in recent weeks. He was accused of inciting violence with an Instagram post, failed to steal the Manchester mayoralty from Labour, and the party is becoming increasingly divided on the subject of defence of spending.

Anoosh Chakelian is joined by political correspondent Megan Kenyon to discuss.

The best day of Andy Burnham's life, Chris Philp goes gonzo in the Channel, and more climate change denial in a burning country.

Anoosh Chakelian and Will Dunn round up some stories you might have missed this week.

Every year, more libraries across Britain close their doors.

As councils have their funding slashed, these are often the first spaces to go.

What do we lose when we stop reading and collecting? What is a library to a community, beyond its books?

Tanjil Rashid is joined by the University of Oxford's Bodley's Librarian, Richard Ovenden.