27 November 1998
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From the Editor…
Welcome to the New Statesman website. Whether you are a new reader or an existing one - online or via the magazine - I hope you'll enjoy the great writing, fresh ideas and provocative debate that make the New Statesman Britain's award-winning current affairs weekly
Cover story
How the left hijacked the family
Children matter, but their parents' marital status does not. That's the third way view and it's won the argument. John Lloyd reports
Features
A hand-up or a put-down for the poor?
Frank Field fears that the welfare reform bill will take us deeper into a means-testing morass
Up, down, shake it all about
Is our money in the hands of lunatics? There was supposed to be a world crash; now the stock markets are soaring again. What's going on? Phil Collinsexplains
I wanted Latin, not woodwork
Andrew Martin, a failure at 11, explains why he would vote against grammar schools
Hush, hush! The workers will hear
When the upper classes were in charge we didn't need official secrecy, explains Phillip Knightley
Does God vote Labour or Tory?
Paul Vallelysees difficulties for both William Hague and Tony Blair in their attempts to bring the Deity on-message
At the threshold of fortress Britain
Campsfield, in the heart of Oxfordshire, is a detention centre where 200 asylum-seekers wait in limbo to know their fate. Jennifer Monahan reports
Open lists will give us closed minds
Denis MacShanedoesn't want Euro elections to be dominated by cash-happy millionaires
10,000 memories in Nelson, Lancashire
Here, the old cotton mill workers recall noise, bullying and hunger. Now, in Asia, a new generation experiences the same conditions
We stopped Boadicea's chariot
Stuart Weirargues that the success of Charter 88 (aged ten this week) proves that people are not weary of democracy, just of Westminster
Regulars
Arts & Culture
Master of the frozen moment
The photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson's work strikes a particular chord in the British. Charles Darwent wonders if its froideur explains why
Golden meanings
Design by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Death becomes him
Folk
Cracked notes
Censorship
Books
Quick, the aliens have landed. NS writers on belief and discovery at the end of the century
The Birth of Christ: Exploding the Myth
P A H Seymour Virgin Books, 244pp, £16.99
Ancient Traces: Mysteries in Ancient and Early History
Michael Baigent Viking, 304pp, £15.99
Arrival of the Gods
Erich Von Daniken Element Books, 240pp, £14.99
Heaven's Mirror: Quest for the Lost Civilisation
Graham Hancock and Santha Faiin Michael Joseph 352pp, £20
Why People Believe Weird Things
Michael Shermer W H Freeman, 294pp, £16.95
Future shocks
What Remains To Be Discovered
John Maddox Macmillan, 434pp, £20
Melancholy roar
An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture
Roger Scruton Duckworth, 152pp, £14.99
What a bender
Uri Geller: Magician or Mystic?
Jonathan Margolis Orion Books, 296pp, £16.99
Sweet soul music
Being a Person: Where Faith and Science Meet
John Habgood Hodder & Stoughton, 307pp, £8.99
Genital games
Engineering Genesis: The Ethics of Genetic Engineering in Non-Human Species
Donald Bruce and Ann Bruce (editors) Earthscan, 337pp, £12.99
Commentary - The voice from the whirlwind
Henry Sheenemerges from a thicket of hard science holding the Old Testament
Observations
Letters to the Editor
New Statesman readers give their views - see what they said and find out how to contribute yourself by going to our letters pages
