Early years The
New Statesman was founded in 1913 by Sidney and Beatrice Webb with the support of George Bernard Shaw and other prominent members of the Fabian Society. The Fabians previously had supported
The New Age but that journal by 1912 had moved away from supporting Fabian politics and issues such as
women's suffrage. The first editor of the
New Statesman was
Clifford Sharp, who remained editor until 1928.
Desmond MacCarthy joined the paper in 1913 and became literary editor, recruiting
Cyril Connolly to the staff in 1928.
J. C. Squire edited the magazine when Sharp was on wartime duties during the First World War. In November 1914, three months after the beginning of the war, the
New Statesman published a lengthy anti-war supplement by Shaw, "Common Sense About The War", a scathing dissection of its causes, which castigated all nations involved but particularly savaged the British. It sold a phenomenal 75,000 copies by the end of the year and created an international sensation.
The New York Times reprinted it as America began its lengthy debate on entering what was then called "the European War". During Sharp's last two years in the post, from around 1926, he was debilitated by chronic alcoholism and the paper was actually edited by his deputy
Charles Mostyn Lloyd. Although the Webbs and most Fabians were closely associated with the
Labour Party, Sharp was drawn increasingly to the
Asquith Liberals. Lloyd stood in after Sharp's departure until the appointment of Kingsley Martin as editor in 1930 – a position that Martin was to hold for 30 years.
1931–1960: Kingsley Martin In 1931 the
New Statesman merged with the Liberal weekly
The Nation and Athenaeum and changed its name to the
New Statesman and Nation, which it kept until 1964. The chairman of
The Nation and Athenaeums board was the economist
John Maynard Keynes, who came to be an important influence on the newly merged paper, which started with a circulation of just under 13,000. It also absorbed
The Week-end Review in 1934 (one element of which survives in the shape of the
New Statesmans Weekly Competition, and the other the "This England" feature). The Competition feature, in which readers submitted jokes and often parodies and pastiches of the work of famous authors, became one of the most famous parts of the magazine. Most famously,
Graham Greene won second prize in a challenge to parody his own work. During the 1930s, Martin's
New Statesman moved markedly to the left politically. It became strongly anti-
fascist and
pacifist, opposing British rearmament. After the 1938
Anschluss, Martin wrote: "Today if
Mr. Chamberlain would come forward and tell us that his policy was really one not only of isolation but also of
Little Englandism in which the
Empire was to be given up because it could not be defended and in which military defence was to be abandoned because war would totally end civilization, we for our part would wholeheartedly support him." The magazine provoked further controversy with its coverage of
Joseph Stalin's
Soviet Union. In 1932, Keynes reviewed Martin's book on the Soviet Union, ''Low's Russian Sketchbook''. Keynes argued that Martin was "a little too full perhaps of good will" towards Stalin, and that any doubts about Stalin's rule had "been swallowed down if possible". Martin was irritated by Keynes's article but still allowed it to be printed. In 1934 it ran an interview with Stalin by
H. G. Wells. Although sympathetic to aspects of the Soviet Union, he disagreed with Stalin on several issues. Martin also refused to allow any of the magazine's writers to review
Leon Trotsky's anti-Stalinist book
The Revolution Betrayed. Martin became more critical of Stalin after the
Hitler–Stalin pact, saying Stalin was "adopting the familiar technique of the Fuhrer", and adding: "Like Hitler, he [Stalin] has a contempt for all arguments except that of superior force." The magazine also condemned the
Soviet invasion of Finland. Circulation grew enormously under Martin's editorship, reaching 70,000 by the end of the Second World War. This number helped the magazine become a key player in Labour politics. The paper welcomed Labour's
1945 general election victory but took a critical line on the new government's foreign policy. The young Labour
MP Richard Crossman, who had become an assistant editor of the magazine before the war, was Martin's chief lieutenant in this period, and the
Statesman published
Keep Left, the pamphlet written by Crossman,
Michael Foot and
Ian Mikardo, that most succinctly laid out the Labour left's proposals for a "third force" foreign policy rather than alliance with the United States. During the 1950s, the
New Statesman remained a left critic of British foreign and defence policy and of the Labour leadership of
Hugh Gaitskell, although Martin never got on personally with
Aneurin Bevan, the leader of the anti-
Gaitskellite Labour faction. The magazine opposed the
Korean War, and an article by
J. B. Priestley directly led to the founding of the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. There was much less focus on a single political line in the back part of the paper, which was devoted to book reviews and articles on cultural topics. Indeed, with these pages managed by
Janet Adam Smith, who was literary editor from 1952 to 1960, the paper was sometimes described as a
pantomime horse: its back half was required reading even for many who disagreed with the paper's politics. This tradition would continue into the 1960s with
Karl Miller as Smith's replacement.
1960–1996: After Kingsley Martin Martin retired in 1960 and was replaced as editor by
John Freeman, a politician and journalist who had resigned from the Labour government in 1951 along with Bevan and
Harold Wilson. Freeman left in 1965 and was followed in the chair by
Paul Johnson, then on the left, under whose editorship the
Statesman reached its highest ever circulation. For some, even enemies of Johnson such as
Richard Ingrams, this was a strong period for the magazine editorially. From 1964 to 1981, the
Statesman was chaired by
Jock Campbell, who endowed the "Jock Campbell-New Statesman Award", a prize of £1,000 that was given every three years for 12 years, with writers born in Africa or the Caribbean being eligible (and winners including
Chinua Achebe,
Wole Soyinka,
Shiva Naipaul,
Derek Walcott and
Buchi Emecheta). After Johnson's departure in 1970, the
Statesman went into a long period of declining circulation under successive editors: Richard Crossman (1970–72), who tried to edit it at the same time as playing a major role in Labour politics;
Anthony Howard (1972–78), whose recruits to the paper included
Christopher Hitchens,
Martin Amis and
James Fenton (surprisingly, the arch anti-socialist
Auberon Waugh was writing for the
Statesman at this time before returning to
The Spectator); Bruce Page (1978–82), who moved the paper towards specialising in investigative journalism, sacking
Arthur Marshall, who had been writing for the
Statesman on and off since 1935, as a columnist, allegedly because of the latter's support for
Margaret Thatcher;
Hugh Stephenson (1982–86), under whom it took a strong position again for
unilateral nuclear disarmament;
John Lloyd (1986–87), who swung the paper's politics back to the centre;
Stuart Weir (1987–90), under whose editorship the
Statesman founded the
Charter 88 constitutional reform pressure group; and
Steve Platt (1990–96). The
Statesman acquired the weekly
New Society in 1988 and merged with it, becoming
New Statesman and Society for the next eight years, then reverting to the old title, having meanwhile absorbed
Marxism Today in 1991. In 1993, the
Statesman was sued by Prime Minister
John Major after it published an article discussing rumours that Major was having an extramarital affair with a
Downing Street caterer. Although the action was settled out of court for a minimal sum, the magazine's legal costs almost led to its closure. In 1994,
KGB defector
Yuri Shvets said that the KGB utilised the
New Statesman to spread disinformation. Shvets said that the KGB had provided disinformation, including forged documents, to the
New Statesman journalist
Claudia Wright, which she used for anti-American and anti-Israel stories in line with the KGB's campaigns.
Since 1996 The
New Statesman was rescued from near-bankruptcy by a takeover by businessman Philip Jeffrey but in 1996, after prolonged boardroom wrangling over Jeffrey's plans, it was sold to
Geoffrey Robinson, the Labour MP and businessman. Following Steve Platt's resignation, Robinson appointed a former editor of
The Independent,
Ian Hargreaves, on what was at the time an unprecedentedly high salary. Hargreaves fired most of the left-wingers on the staff and turned the
Statesman into a strong supporter of
Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. The cover was illustrated with a gold
Star of David resting on a
Union Jack. Wilby responded to the criticisms in a subsequent issue. During Wilby's seven-year tenure, the
New Statesman moved from making a financial loss to having a good operating profit, though circulation only remained steady at around 23,000.
John Kampfner, Wilby's political editor, succeeded him as editor in May 2005 following considerable internal lobbying. Under Kampfner's editorship, a relaunch in 2006 initially saw headline circulation climb to more than 30,000. However, more than 5,000 of these were apparently monitored free copies, and Kampfner failed to maintain the 30,000 circulation he had pledged. In February 2008, Audit Bureau Circulation figures showed that circulation had plunged nearly 13% in 2007. Kampfner resigned on 13 February 2008, the day before the
ABC figures were made public, reportedly due to conflicts with Robinson over the magazine's marketing budget (which Robinson had apparently slashed in reaction to the fall in circulation). In April 2008, Geoffrey Robinson sold a 50% interest in the magazine to businessman Mike Danson, and the remainder a year later. The appointment of the new editor
Jason Cowley was announced on 16 May 2008, but he did not take up the job until the end of September 2008. In January 2009, the magazine refused to recognise the
National Union of Journalists, the trade union to which almost all of its journalists belonged, though further discussions were promised but never materialised. Cowley was named current affairs editor of the year at the
British Society of Magazine Editors awards in 2009, and in 2011 he was named editor of the year in the Newspaper & Current Affairs Magazine Category at the British Society of Magazine Editors awards, while Jon Bernstein, the deputy editor, gained the award for Consumer Website Editor of the Year. Cowley had been shortlisted as Editor of the Year (consumer magazines) in the 2012 PPA (
Professional Publishers Association) Awards. He was also shortlisted for the European Press Prize editing award in January 2013, when the awards committee said: "Cowley has succeeded in revitalising the New Statesman and re-establishing its position as an influential political and cultural weekly. He has given the New Statesman an edge and a relevance to current affairs it hasn’t had for years." The magazine published a 186-page centenary special in April 2013, the largest single issue in its history. It also published two special editions (250 and 150 pages), showcasing 100 years of the best and boldest journalism from its archives. In the following year it expanded its web presence by establishing two new websites: May2015.com, a polling data site focused on the
2015 general election, and CityMetric, a cities magazine site under the tagline, "Urbanism for the social media age" and edited by
Jonn Elledge. It was announced in December 2016 that the Weekend Competition, a feature inherited from
The Week-end Review, would be discontinued, for reasons of space. The
New Statesman took a neutral position in the
2019 general election. It was the first time in the magazine's history it had explicitly chosen not to endorse Labour. As of 2020, the
New Statesman considers itself a "print-digital hybrid" with peak online traffic of more than 4 million unique visitors per month, almost a four-fold increase since 2011. This compares to the magazine's overall circulation of 36,591, At the 2020 British Society of Magazine Editors (BSME) awards, editor Jason Cowley was named Current Affairs and Politics editor of the year for the fourth time, defeating rivals from
The Spectator,
The Big Issue and
Prospect. "In increasingly tribal times, Jason Cowley continues to champion independence of thought and diversity of opinion, challenging his audience and producing a magazine that's imaginative, unpredictable and interesting", the BSME judges said on presenting the award. The magazine's Spotlight series (which publishes specialist business content) also won the Launch of the Year award, with judges describing the supplements as a "great example of monetising a brand without losing its integrity". In June 2024, the
New Statesman accidentally spread the false report that
Noam Chomsky had died. In 2025,
Tom McTague took over as editor. ==Guest editors==