Any hopes
that the New Statesman might have improve with the departure of the shockingly
reactionary Jason Cowley have evaporated with the 4-10 July issue and in
particular a transparent puff piece by the disgrace to journalism that is
George Eaton.
The editor’s
note at the front, from new boss Tom McTague, states idealistically:
My ambition
for the New Statesman is to step into this obvious ideological void on the left
of politics to be a journal of ideas that can help light a new direction for
this government, and for progressive politics more generally.
And then
you get the same-as-the-last-boss shite from Eaton – a puff piece about MorganMcSweeney full of self-serving, self-justifying anonymous quotes from McSweeney’s
allies, most probably from the post-progressive himself.
A lot has
been written recently about McSweeney being under pressure so Eaton obviously
feels the need to big the little man up. The formula
is the same throughout: McSweeney’s critics say something critical but his “allies”
come back with some zinging self-justification, always anonymous.
Soft-left MPs and figures such as Sadiq Khan and
Campbell are urging Starmer to be true to his original left-liberal instincts
and embrace an unashamedly progressive agenda (a No 10 source told me Campbell
“wouldn’t last two minutes in Morgan’s job” and was “utterly clueless about the
sentiment and state of the country”). McSweeney’s confidants, in the words of
one, regard him as a “constant ballast that ensures we look beyond SW1”.
Without him, they warn, Labour would become detached from the common ground of
public opinion on defining issues such as immigration and welfare, retreating
to the comforts of opposition.
There is no sick bag big enough for this kind of drivel.
And:
McSweeney’s critics now cast the [2024 election] result as
the inevitable byproduct of Tory failure – a conclusion disputed by his allies.
“Take a look around the world, take a look through human history and see how
often the left wins when the right screws up and the answer is hardly ever,”
said one. “The right screwing up is necessary but woefully insufficient to the
left winning.”
Elsewhere in the magazine, there is a sniping piece from
Finn McRedmond, painting Glastonbury goers as Deloitte types who all take ketamine, and the increasingly laughable Andrew Marr telling us four years before the
next election must be held that “Farage will likely be our next prime minister”.
Finally, we have the cover story by economic and financial
expert Will Dunn, who writes a lengthy demand for wholesale tax reform on the
premise that:
“A year in and the government has run out of money”.
Run out of money? Really?
