Skip to main content

Hello. It looks like you’re using an ad blocker that may prevent our website from working properly. To receive the best experience possible, please make sure any ad blockers are switched off, or add https://experience.tinypass.com to your trusted sites, and refresh the page.

If you have any questions or need help you can email us.

Who wants to edit the New Statesman?

It’s been over three months since Jason Cowley stepped down and his successor is yet to be announced

Image: The New European

The continued vacancy at the top of left-leaning political weekly the New Statesman is causing much scratching of heads. When Fraser Nelson’s departure from the Spectator was announced last September, his replacement – Michael Gove – was announced the very same day. But it is now over three months since Jason Cowley stepped down at the Statesman, and at the time of writing there is still no successor in place.

Cowley’s well-liked and capable deputy Tom Gatti is filling the role as acting editor, but many of the obvious candidates to take the job permanently are rumoured to have ruled themselves out of the running. Foremost among those is Cowley’s longtime deputy Helen Lewis, now firmly installed with the Atlantic and Private Eye, and understood to have no interest in a return.

Stephen Bush, Lewis Goodall and Tom McTague were all mentioned as contenders at various stages of the process, but none seem to have claimed the role. The unusual gulf is leading the rumour mill to publicly turn over more names – the Economist’s Bagehot columnist Duncan Robinson and writer Phil Tinline have both been mentioned. But if there is a consensus, it’s that the silence is becoming unnerving. Surely they can find someone for what should be one of the better gigs in the media?

Hello. It looks like you’re using an ad blocker that may prevent our website from working properly. To receive the best experience possible, please make sure any ad blockers are switched off, or add https://experience.tinypass.com to your trusted sites, and refresh the page.

If you have any questions or need help you can email us.

See inside the The greatest betrayal edition

Copies of Unleashed, Boris Johnson's account of his time in office. Photo: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Fancy a selfie with Boris Johnson? That’ll be £121, please

The former prime minister is hardly on his uppers, but is charging a pretty penny for a keepsake snap

Liz Truss speaking to the YouTuber Gabe Groisman. Photo: YouTube

Liz Truss, saving the west one podcast at a time

The former prime minister has been reduced to giving interviews to obscure US YouTubers with a handful of viewers