31 January 2000
Become a subscriber and save £££
Save up to 50% on the New Statesman for twelve months and receive "Flat Earth News" from the award-winning investigative journalist Nick Davies FREE!
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
Why arms sales are bad for Britain
Samuel Brittanargues that selling weapons to odious regimes, as well as being ethically wrong, isn't economically good for us either
Features
Hit the target and miss the point
The government has set targets not just for NHS waiting-lists, but for quality of waitress service. Nick Cohenwonders if this is the best way to run a country
Let's turn the NHS upside down
We will not get better health services until we relax central control, argues Julia Neuberger
A theorem is a joy for ever
The government wants us to improve our numeracy skills to help us cash in on e-commerce. But the real point of maths is its beauty, argues Simon Singh
London? Oh, that's Eurasia
Richard Sennett explains that, with US voters looking for an "in-touch" president, knowledge of abroad will be a positive disadvantage
Machiavelli faces the supreme test
Peter Mandelson went to Ulster to soothe the unionists - and has largely succeeded. But can he solve the latest crisis? John Lloyd reports
Pinochet and Pygmalion in the park
In Chile, the judge who will decide the fate of the country's former dictator bumps into Stephen Smith, accidentally on purpose, for a chat
Big profits mean better schools
Focus on education - Imagine private companies, with brand names as familiar as Tesco or Safeway, running chains of schools. Standards would soar, argues James Tooley
We must stop the waste of talent
Focus on education - Peter Lampl argues that, if British universities are to have a more equitable intake, they should stop relying solely on A-levels and learn from their US counterparts
More bang for the buck? Prove it!
Focus on education - Francis Beckettasks if private schools really do give better value than the state sector
Mugged by the mother country
For all the talk of crime rates in South Africa, Bryan Rostron found bigger crooks in the UK
Good riddance to the Wee Frees
New Statesman Scotland
Scotland's forgotten laureate
New Statesman Scotland - Had he not died at the age of 24, the poet Robert Fergusson would have rivalled the great Burns, claims Alan Taylor
Paragons of legislation
New Statesman Scotland - What a collection of charismatic, perspicacious statesmen are the members of the Scottish Parliament. Tom Mortonis struck dumb by their eloquence
Samuel Smiles
New Statesman Scotland
Primary Tartan
New Statesman Scotland
Regulars
Arts & Culture
Bridge over troubled water
The new bridge uniting Sweden and Denmark is a towering icon of science and modernity; it is also a powerful symbol of the onward march to a borderless Europe
Bromley blues
Music - Richard Cook on how Billy Jenkins has created his very own modern sound
Shock of the old
1900: Art at the Crossroads, the Royal Academy's first exhibition of the millennium, has been drubbed by some critics. One reviewer called it "a real dog of a show". We asked a critic and a painter to take a look
Television
Dreary Sundays
Television - Andrew Billen is bewildered by the changes in working-class drama
Books
I danced to a decadent drum. An impressive study of the Brit-Art scene prompts Will Self to relive his drunken nights out with a group of over-hyped cartoonists masquerading as serious artists
High Art Lite
Julian Stallabrass Verso, 342pp, £22
ISBN 1859847218
Manic Magyar
Don't Read This Book If You're Stupid
Tibor Fischer Secker & Warburg, 224pp, £10
ISBN 0436220822
Disunited kingdom
The Day Britain Died
Andrew Marr Profile Books, 251pp, £7.99
ISBN 1861972237
The reluctant redundant
Mr Phillips
John Lanchester Faber & Faber, 247pp, £16.99
ISBN 057120161X
Get shorty
Neonlit: Time Out Book of New Writing, Volume 2
Nicholas Royle (editor) Quartet Books, 224pp, £7
ISBN 0704381230
Hard Shoulder
Jackie Gay and Julia Bell (editors) Tindal Street Press, 248pp, £6.99
Vexing vaccines. Aids is still killing millions in Africa. Tony Barnett reads an account of how the virus may have jumped species
The River: a journey back to the source of HIV and AIDS
Edward Hooper Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1,070pp, £25
ISBN 0713993359
Monkey business. Aids is still killing millions in Africa. Mike Barrett charts the controversy surrounding its discovery
Virus: the co-discoverer of HIV tracks its rampage and charts the future
Luc Montagnier W W Norton, 256pp, £18.95
ISBN 0393039234
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
