‘It seems the progressive mindset is now so flexible that it can accommodate an attitude to labour relations that would be familiar in an autocratic Gulf petrostate.’ @DespoticInroad on our broken social care system 👇 buff.ly/nAYko5U

🎄THE NEW STATESMAN CHRISTMAS ISSUE🎄 Our Christmas issue has landed! Inside the 120 page jumbo issue: 🗣️ Interviews with @Nigel_Farage, @wesstreeting and Salman Rushdie ✍️ Columns by @ZackPolanski, @GordonBrown, @AndrewMarr9 and @lewis_goodall 📚 Features from @DalrympleWill, @jimmy__mcintosh, @CharlieFBBaker1, Kate Mossman, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, @TomMcTague, @finn_mcredmond, Rowan Williams and more 🏛️ Geoff Dyer, @AmandaPCraig , John Gray and Janet Todd in the New Society 🤯 A new story by Anton Chekhov

Everyone knows that Nigel Farage is friends with Donald Trump. But his relationship with America is much deeper than that. My piece on his forty year love affair with the US: newstatesman.com/politics/uk…

WES STREETING: “I’M PRETTY FRUSTRATED” Interview with @PronouncedAlva Labour, languishing in the polls, is having a torrid time in office and a leadership contest is widely expected at some point in 2026. Privately, cabinet ministers barely pretend that the party isn’t in deep trouble. Over the course of our interview, Streeting doesn’t either. “I’m pretty frustrated, to be honest,” he tells me. “I feel like on one hand, since we’ve come into government, we’ve actually done a huge amount that we said we’d do… But that’s not reflected in the polls, and I don’t think it’s even reflected in our storytelling. I think we sell ourselves short.” Labour is in danger of presenting itself as the “maintenance department for the country”, he says. “The problem with that kind of practical, technocratic approach is that if someone else comes along and says, ‘Well, I’ve got a maintenance company too, and mine’s cheaper,’ why wouldn’t people go, ‘OK, well, we’ll give that maintenance team a try’?” He doesn’t name Starmer, but the critique of the Prime Minister’s “practical, technocratic” leadership is clear.

WES STREETING: “I’M PRETTY FRUSTRATED” Interview with @PronouncedAlva Labour, languishing in the polls, is having a torrid time in office and a leadership contest is widely expected at some point in 2026. Privately, cabinet ministers barely pretend that the party isn’t in deep trouble. Over the course of our interview, Streeting doesn’t either. “I’m pretty frustrated, to be honest,” he tells me. “I feel like on one hand, since we’ve come into government, we’ve actually done a huge amount that we said we’d do… But that’s not reflected in the polls, and I don’t think it’s even reflected in our storytelling. I think we sell ourselves short.” Labour is in danger of presenting itself as the “maintenance department for the country”, he says. “The problem with that kind of practical, technocratic approach is that if someone else comes along and says, ‘Well, I’ve got a maintenance company too, and mine’s cheaper,’ why wouldn’t people go, ‘OK, well, we’ll give that maintenance team a try’?” He doesn’t name Starmer, but the critique of the Prime Minister’s “practical, technocratic” leadership is clear.

NIGEL FARAGE'S AMERICAN DREAM by @freddiejh8 When Nigel Farage flew into JFK Airport, New York, for the first time in 1988, he was travelling into the future. Ronald Reagan was the global figurehead of a conservative counter-revolution sweeping the West, one that merged tradition with new money and black-tie balls with the mantra “greed is good”. America was what’s next. For Farage, it still is. This love affair began decades before he met Donald Trump. Farage has been commuting to the US since the late 1980s, crossing the Atlantic more times than he can count. During our interview, when I asked Farage what he admired about America back then, he said: “The can-do. The applauding of success.” Raheem Kassam, a former Ukip aide who has reinvented himself into a flamboyant restaurateur in Washington, told me “If England were the 51st state, Nigel Farage would be one of the senators.” Steve Bannon was hosting a dinner in Manhattan in 2018. Kassam, who had organised rallies in support of Tommy Robinson, told Farage that he should stop criticising those to his right. “I was like, let Tommy be Tommy,” Kassam said. “Your problem is you’re a Dulwich [school] posh boy.” Then they “literally lunged at each other, and Steve had to put his arm in the middle of us”. Now, Bannon says Farage “draws crowds the size of Ted Cruz… He’s plugged in to every senior person in Maga from the president on down. He couldn’t be more highly regarded, because the guy’s delivered. He’s a major player. He’s going to be the next prime minister.” Over the past two decades, Senator Farage has built a gentlemen’s club of connections in Washington. The New Statesman has spoken to figures on the Hill, key players in the Trump administration and sources within Reform. The picture that emerges is of a future prime minister who sees Trump’s US as a blueprint for the country that Britain must become.

NIGEL FARAGE'S AMERICAN DREAM by @freddiejh8 When Nigel Farage flew into JFK Airport, New York, for the first time in 1988, he was travelling into the future. Ronald Reagan was the global figurehead of a conservative counter-revolution sweeping the West, one that merged tradition with new money and black-tie balls with the mantra “greed is good”. America was what’s next. For Farage, it still is. This love affair began decades before he met Donald Trump. Farage has been commuting to the US since the late 1980s, crossing the Atlantic more times than he can count. During our interview, when I asked Farage what he admired about America back then, he said: “The can-do. The applauding of success.” Raheem Kassam, a former Ukip aide who has reinvented himself into a flamboyant restaurateur in Washington, told me “If England were the 51st state, Nigel Farage would be one of the senators.” Steve Bannon was hosting a dinner in Manhattan in 2018. Kassam, who had organised rallies in support of Tommy Robinson, told Farage that he should stop criticising those to his right. “I was like, let Tommy be Tommy,” Kassam said. “Your problem is you’re a Dulwich [school] posh boy.” Then they “literally lunged at each other, and Steve had to put his arm in the middle of us”. Now, Bannon says Farage “draws crowds the size of Ted Cruz… He’s plugged in to every senior person in Maga from the president on down. He couldn’t be more highly regarded, because the guy’s delivered. He’s a major player. He’s going to be the next prime minister.” Over the past two decades, Senator Farage has built a gentlemen’s club of connections in Washington. The New Statesman has spoken to figures on the Hill, key players in the Trump administration and sources within Reform. The picture that emerges is of a future prime minister who sees Trump’s US as a blueprint for the country that Britain must become.

Minimum wage should not go any higher, suggests Badenoch bbc.in/3KFsjUS

This week I investigated the explosion in the London luxury supermarket scene Click through to learn exactly how much it costs to buy carrots at Harrods