GORDON PARSONS is bowled over by a skilfully stripped down and powerfully relevant production of Hamlet
The UK’s elective dictatorship
JOHN GREEN welcomes a significant contribution to the discussion of the urgent need to reform Britain’s failed governmental system
In which we accompany the Bard into Cymru to meet his musical accomplices, young and old
SUE TURNER is inspired by the example of a librarian’s struggle to confront the book-banning movement
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews I Am Martin Parr, September Says, The Monkey, and The Gorge
RITA DI SANTO applauds a touching and witty opener that touches a hot topic in Germany: the future of the immigrant population
SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
Failed State – Why Nothing Works and How We Fix it
By Sam Freedman, Macmillan, £20
FREEDMAN was until 2007, a member of the Labour Party, and has spent much of his working life at the heart of government, both as a civil servant in the Department for Education as a senior policy adviser to Michael Gove and as adviser to the leader of the then opposition. This, his first book, argues persuasively that the British government is not fit for purpose and explains in detail why.
He is not a Marxist and offers no class analysis, but it would by asinine to dismiss his critique on that basis. He provides an incisive analysis of what is wrong with our present system from an insider’s viewpoint. He argues that modern British history is best thought of “not as a story of decline but of a repeating series of crises that are eventually resolved.” “Our problem,” he goes on, “is the total failure of our political institutions to deal with the [even] more limited challenges we have.”
More from this author
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview
ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes
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With respect for the authors’ intentions, JOHN GREEN demonstrates the lack of class consciousness that undermines their critique of dysfunctional Britain