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Reposted by Tanjil Rashid

Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 13d

"It might be entertaining, but it won’t make you think, and it won’t make you feel"

My review of The Bacchae at the National Theatre - a production based on the premise the audience won’t notice how little sense it makes as long as the cast say fuck enough

www.newstatesman.com/culture/thea...

The Bacchae is more cringe-inducing than clever

Indhu Rubasingham’s debut as artistic director of the National Theatre tries to bring girlboss feminism to Euripides

www.newstatesman.com

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Reposted by Tanjil Rashid

Brian Logan @mrbrianlogan.bsky.social · 26d

Striking piece, essential read 👇

Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Sep 3

We are entering an age of deportation - my @newstatesman.com cover story on how mass expulsions will transform what it means to be British, via Kipling, Enoch Powell, Hanif Kureishi...and a heroic vigilante cycle repairist from Eritrea

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

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Reposted by Tanjil Rashid

The New Statesman @handle.invalid · 22d

Robert Redford, who has died at 89, was the last simple beauty.

🍿 David Thomson

Robert Redford was the last simple beauty

Robert Redford, 1936-2025.

www.newstatesman.com

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Sep 6

There's no point engaging with someone so incapable of reading. The 'way out' referenced here is strengthening international law so that people are not made stateless through war and persecution, rather than disapplying it in order to deport people. Goodbye!

Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Sep 5

Brilliant piece by my colleague @anooshc.bsky.social glimpsing fascinatingly into the worldview of what will be an increasingly influential current within parliaments of the future

Anoosh Chakelian @anooshc.bsky.social · Sep 4

“There is a risk of polarising every landlord as ‘evil’ - we must make sure we don’t fall into that trap.”

Lumped together as "Gaza Independents", the 4 independent MPs working with Corbyn & Sultana are more varied than that - as I found out from Shockat Adam:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Shockat Adam on Britain’s new left: “We’re not anti-wealth”

The independent MP on building a new party with Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.

www.newstatesman.com

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Reposted by Tanjil Rashid

Anoosh Chakelian @anooshc.bsky.social · Sep 4

“There is a risk of polarising every landlord as ‘evil’ - we must make sure we don’t fall into that trap.”

Lumped together as "Gaza Independents", the 4 independent MPs working with Corbyn & Sultana are more varied than that - as I found out from Shockat Adam:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Shockat Adam on Britain’s new left: “We’re not anti-wealth”

The independent MP on building a new party with Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.

www.newstatesman.com

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Sep 5

Have you read the article or even the attached headlines? Can you explain to me what makes you think I believe in accepting the advent of 'the age of deportation'? It should be quite obvious, on even the most cursory reading (or glancing) that I oppose it with self-evident passion?

Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Sep 3

We are entering an age of deportation - my @newstatesman.com cover story on how mass expulsions will transform what it means to be British, via Kipling, Enoch Powell, Hanif Kureishi...and a heroic vigilante cycle repairist from Eritrea

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

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Reposted by Tanjil Rashid

Anoosh Chakelian @anooshc.bsky.social · Sep 3

"I, too, would not be possible, would not be English, without those old histories, which the right now seeks to bury beneath the footsteps of deported masses."

@tanjilrashid.bsky.social writes beautifully on the age of deportation in this week's @newstatesman.com cover story:

The age of deportation

The haven that Britain once was is being dismantled. In its place a fortress rises.

www.newstatesman.com

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Reposted by Tanjil Rashid

Tobias Jones @tobiasjones.bsky.social · Sep 3

Read @tanjilrashid.bsky.social's piece.
Dehumanisation happens so fast. This notion that all our very serious problems can be solved by pushing a good 2% (do I hear 10?) of our communities off our white cliffs is insanely stupid & vengeful.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

The age of deportation

The haven that Britain once was is being dismantled. In its place a fortress rises.

www.newstatesman.com

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Reposted by Tanjil Rashid

Goldsmiths Prize @goldsmithsprize.bsky.social · Sep 2

'If you're experimenting with things, you're always writing against the culture'

Goldsmiths Prize 2017 winner Nicola Barker talks to @tanjilrashid.bsky.social about piecing the novel back together again after H(A)PPY, and much else . . .

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...

Author Nicola Barker:

Podcast Episode · The New Statesman: politics and culture · 30/08/2025 · 38m

podcasts.apple.com

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Aug 1

A year on from the summer riots, my latest @newstatesman.com column muses on the nature of political violence and how to keep it from consuming our streets, via Gandhi, MLK, Malcolm X and that most underrated of social theorists, director Spike Lee. newstatesman.com/politics/uk-po…

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Reposted by Tanjil Rashid

Mark Braund @markbraund.substack.com · Jul 10

This is a great piece by @tanjilrashid.bsky.social, @newstatesman.com's new Culture Editor.

Let's hope he commissions himself as often as possible.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/soc...

7/7 changed life for British Muslims forever

It was the 2005 bombings, not 9/11, that put them at the centre of terror discourse.

www.newstatesman.com

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Jul 7

7/7 was twenty years ago today.

In my column for the @newstatesman.com, I reflect on how the London bombings reshaped British cultural life and brought 'the Muslim' to the centre of its discourse.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/soc...

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Reposted by Tanjil Rashid

Lydia Kiesling @lydiakiesling.bsky.social · Jun 22

This is a wonderful analysis by @tanjilrashid.bsky.social: "The Phoenician Scheme may at once be Anderson’s worst and most profound film, a beautifully textured engagement with the past, and an almost morally repugnant retreat from the present." Exactly!!! www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ju...

The Phoenician Scheme is fantasy. It is also a remarkable engagement with the real-life conflict in the Middle East

Sharp edges of bitter history keep jutting through Wes Anderson’s whimsical intrigues that turn international tragedy into light comedy

www.theguardian.com

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Jun 21

Time to inform you that I've been appointed Culture Editor at The @newstatesman.com - a magazine that has been essential reading for over a century.

Looking forward to hearing from and getting to know the very best critics, essayists and commentators on books, ideas & the arts!

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Jun 18

The Phoenician Scheme reimagines the war-ravaged near east as a sunlit Levantine fantasia of cypress trees, fez hats, camel-riders and kitsch hotels.

My @theguardian.com column on watching Wes Anderson's nostalgic colonial visions amid the devastation of Gaza.
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ju...

The Phoenician Scheme is fantasy. It is also a remarkable engagement with the real-life conflict in the Middle East

Sharp edges of bitter history keep jutting through Wes Anderson’s whimsical intrigues that turn international tragedy into light comedy

www.theguardian.com

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Jun 2

Has Christianity regained the underground appeal of its earliest days?

My essay in the @financialtimes.com at the weekend explored the revival of a highly personalised spirituality, notably among Gen-Z, and what some recent writing may reveal about the phenomenon.

www.ft.com/content/9446...

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · May 31

I actually think you're right! I don't imagine there'll be anything like a real return to a religious society, but this limited resurgence, in the form of small, faith-based subcultures somewhat antagonistic to the secular mainstream, still -- for me at least -- warranted some cultural analysis

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Apr 24

EP Thompson argued, "Class is a cultural as much as an economic formation." Worryingly, Britan's white working class are now recognising race *as* their culture.

My @newstatesman.com essay responding to @joelbudd.bsky.social's new book on the white working class
www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

Who are the white working class?

A deeply reported survey of a much-mythologised slice of Britain reveals a heterogeneous, complex demographic.

www.newstatesman.com

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Apr 1

3 EU citizens with the right to live in Germany are being deported for their role in Gaza protests. They weren't convicted of any crime or even given the chance to be heard in court. The politicians insisted, against opposition from officials; that was that. No German paper has yet even reported it.

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Mar 7

For The @newstatesman.com, I wrote about the greatest modern Italian novel (newly adapted by Netflix): The Leopard, but the essay is also about living in a time of change, where novels come from, and how to be the last of one's kind www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

The Leopard and the ruins of history

Newly adapted by Netflix, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel is a lesson in the anarchic motions of our times.

www.newstatesman.com

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Mar 1

Roland Barthes magical on the way chopsticks "never violate the foodstuff", unlike the "predatory" knife and fork. This is from his book of reflections mostly on Japan, Empire of Signs.

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Feb 25

I've been covering the Berlin film festival, which happened alongside a federal election. Here were Germany's two parallel universes, one open and cosmopolitan, the other seeking to close itself off. My
@newstatesman.com diary dispatched from Berlin: www.newstatesman.com/culture/film...

Fear, lust and paranoia at the Berlin Film Festival

Gaza, free speech and the ascendant far right were unavoidable themes at the 75th Berlinale.

www.newstatesman.com

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Tanjil Rashid @tanjilrashid.bsky.social · Feb 21

Missing a big one in Citizen Kane!!

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