8 November 1999
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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
Features
How the PM recruited for the Tories
Very much like the Old Contemptibles, the Conservatives are now rejoicing in an enemy's insult
The story of a strange romance
Once, business was solidly Tory; now many big corporate chiefs adore new Labour. But can it last? John Lloyd reports
A new breed of godfathers
Anna Matveeva describes the strongmen of the former Soviet provinces in the Caucasus: ruthless warriors, who are also sports stars and writers
In Asia, the dynasties still rule
Gandhi, Bhutto, Megawati: they all owe their positions to feudalism, not to merit. The result is an inept and corrupt politics, reports John Elliott
Why I can't take the City seriously
For 13 years D J Taylor worked with corporate heroes and accounting executives. Then he realised that they all talked rubbish and expected him to do the same
It's what they call a challenging post
New Statesman Scotland - Scottish Labour is looking for a new general secretary. Tom Brownrewrites the job description
Designed to see to all our needs
New Statesman Scotland - Colin Douglason the first fruits of plans to meld the health service into a single, smooth-running machine
Primary Tartan
New Statesman Scotland
This Alba
New Statesman Scotland
Grassroots
New Statesman Scotland
Regulars
Arts & Culture
Neat dreams
Suburbia may attract, amuse or appal us. Charles Darwent sees this ambiguity developed in the dark room
Clearly labelled
Music - Richard Cook celebrates 30 years of Manfred Eicher's ECM Records
Animal magic
Technology - Hugh Aldersey-Williams on the ever quicker march of animation
Television
Kith and skin
Television - Andrew Billen on civil war in Kosovo and race relations in Britain
Food
Prose and cons
Food - Never mind Elizabeth David's private life; it's her books that matter, argues Bee Wilson
Books
The end of affair. The Crown is a tacky heritage centre, Toryism is extinct and Blairism likely to become little more than the wake of Great Britain. Tom Nairn on our disunited kingdom
The Scottish Nation 1700-2000
T M Devine The Penguin Press, 696pp, £25
ISBN 0713993510
A debt to pleasure
The Oxford Companion to Food
Alan Davidson Oxford University Press, 892pp, £40
ISBN 0192115790
Apples and pears
My East End: A History of Cockney London
Gilda O'Neill Viking, 322pp, £16.99
ISBN 0670870773
Pukka Stalinist
The Vices of Integrity: E H Carr, 1892-1982
Jonathan Haslam Verso, 240pp, £25
ISBN 1859847331
Revolution and World Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Sixth Great Power
Fred Halliday Macmillan, 416pp, £15.99
Back in print
The Unfortunates
B S Johnson Picador, £18.99
ISBN 0330353292
The do Ron, Ron
Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan
Edmund Morris HarperCollins, 874pp, £24.99
ISBN 0002177099
Novel of the week
A Good Place To Die
James Buchan Harvill, 320pp, £16.99
ISBN 1860466478
Useful Idiots
Under the Red Flag: A History of Communism in Britain
Keith Laybourn & Dylan Murphy Sutton Publishing, 256pp, £25
ISBN 0750914858
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
