Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
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
failed state
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
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
While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China
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
