Anoosh Chakelian

London

Podcast Host at The New Statesman Podcast

Britain editor, @NewStatesman. Lead host, @NewStatesman Podcast (Publisher Podcast Award winner '21-24) & co-host Westminster Reimagined with Armando Iannucci.

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Articles

How the weather changed on the “cruel” two-child benefit cap

1 week ago | newstatesman.com | Anoosh Chakelian

Labour is in the middle of a slow-motion U-turn on the two-child benefit cap. Our political editor, Andrew Marr, revealed on last week’s episode of the New Statesman podcast that it was Keir Starmer’s “priority” to reverse the George Osborne-era cut to benefits for third-born children, and there have been similar reports over the bank holiday weekend.
The children denied a childhood

2 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Anoosh Chakelian

After a year of maternity leave, my mind is now a map of the best routes to walk around London’s East End. Like the Knowledge, but for prams. My favourite follows the thicketed paths around Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park – the poorest and most overlooked of Victorian London’s “Magnificent Seven” private cemeteries. And not just because the gravel pathways rippling with roots are ideal terrain for jiggling a baby to sleep.
Britain’s aisles of strangers

3 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Anoosh Chakelian

The last Morrisons café is closing its doors. Since April, the supermarket chain has been shutting down its 52 in-store cafés, ending with the Haxby branch in north Yorkshire on 14 May. Seeking a leaner model, the company is instead trialling new “robots” to guide customers through the aisles and check stock levels, pricing and placement. This isn’t just a niche retail story.
Teresa Thornhill interview: “The system keeps some children safe, but fails others”

May 8, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Anoosh Chakelian

Chelsea K was a homeless 18-year-old who grew up in and out of foster care. She was pregnant and unsure of the father’s identity; the likeliest candidate was someone known to authorities as a violent and mentally unstable man. She didn’t access antenatal care until eight months into her pregnancy. When asked where she and her baby – known in social services documentation as “Unborn K” – would live, she suggested they would move in with her mother, who had a drinking problem.
From Marilynne Robinson to Ross King: new books reviewed in short

Apr 24, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Pippa Bailey |Michael Prodger |Anoosh Chakelian |Tom Gatti

Reading Genesis by Marilynne RobinsonMarilynne Robinson’s book is exegesis, but it’s not a scholarly study. Rather, it approaches this foundational text – of Judaism, Christianity and much of Western thought – as a work of literature. That is not to say that Robinson, who is Christian, considers it fiction, but that she believes it to be the product of multiple writers, carefully honed and refined over generations.
Robin Simcox: “Extremism is not always a black-and-white issue”

Apr 24, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Anoosh Chakelian

Robin Simcox is the UK’s commissioner for countering extremism. But what does “extremism” mean? It is a “subjective word”, he said when we met near his office in Farringdon, central London. “It means different things to different people. It’s not always a black-and-white issue.”We spoke not long after the government published its new definition of extremism on 14 March. It was widely received with derision, and criticised by three former Conservative home secretaries.
Britain’s worklessness crisis is getting worse

Apr 21, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Anoosh Chakelian

Inflation, GDP, net migration, Labour’s poll lead – these are all numbers Westminster politicians obsess over. But one measure above all is causing angst at the heart of the UK government: economic inactivity. It is a dehumanising bit of Whitehallese for a very human phenomenon – those of working age who are neither in nor seeking work. The number of people inactive because of ill health has hit a new record high of 2.8 million.
How Britain legalised crime

Apr 9, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Anoosh Chakelian

“Pig Alley” is a corridor of crime running along the backs of houses and garages in the Kent town of Chatham, on the River Medway. It doesn’t have an official name – local police call it Newnham Street, the fire service Henry Street, but everyone knows it as Pig or Piggy Alley. Historically, two abattoirs operated at either end, and residents would spot the occasional escapee piglet. The name has stuck today because police (“pigs”) often turn up here.
John Healey: “Britain has a lot to learn from Ukraine’s resilience”

Apr 3, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Anoosh Chakelian

During the last general election campaign, when Labour campaigners were out knocking on doors, Help for Heroes or Royal British Legion stickers in windows were sure signs they wouldn’t get a hearing. By polling day in December 2019, under the leadership of long-time Nato sceptic Jeremy Corbyn, the party had developed a reputation for being soft on defence.
Britain’s bitter asylum stalemate

Mar 20, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Anoosh Chakelian

I’ll always remember the first time I glimpsed the inside of an “asylum hotel”. Beyond the Channel-battered dinghies washing up on Kentish shingle, nothing encapsulates Britain’s bitter asylum stalemate better than the 350-odd hotels controversially commandeered by the Home Office across the UK. In June 2023 such hotels housed 50,546 people awaiting asylum decisions.