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24 April 2000

From the Editor…

sue-matthiasWelcome 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

Are the loonies coming back?

The left has been in the doldrums for nearly 20 years. But Scotland and Wales, as well as London, create the hope of a revival, reports John Lloyd

Features

London's own grim fairy tale

With genies, the Pied Piper and strange omens greeting him at every corner, Blake Morrisonfinds the London mayoral campaign trail a surreal experience

Be a relaxer, take a longer holiday

On the Continent, people wind down properly with month-long vacations. The British, by contrast, insist on stress-inducing short breaks

A moment of truth for the centre-left

Putting all your money in shares is risky. Yet our rulers encourage us to do it

Labour's very own backwoodsman?

Francis Beckett asks if David Blunkett has blown his chance to revive our ailing state schools

Max Clifford is a nice chap shock!

Edwina Currie once called him "that little turd", but Britain's most notorious publicist struck Leo McKinstryas a man of integrity and even modesty

Sad, foolish, rather disgusting

James Buchan, having endured the Irving libel case, concludes that the defeated author, like the Mitford girls in the 1930s, sees the Nazis as funny folk

Why Ecstasy is the capitalist pill

Cannabis encouraged dissent. New drugs help you to love the market

Frills and thrills: high camp at the high altar

Christian Churches condemn homosexuality. So why, asks Michael Arditti, are so many priests gay?

Not a bridge too far

New Statesman Scotland

There may be troubles ahead

New Statesman Scotland - A report calling for Anglican bishops to be installed in the Church of Scotland has been well received. But the opposition is already mustering, writesGeorge Rosie

What men can learn from women

New Statesman Scotland - A lifetime of hard work is long gone. Alistair Moffat wants men to channel their energy more productively

Primary Tartan

New Statesman Scotland

Samuel Smiles

New Statesman Scotland

Arts & Culture

Three men and a manifesto

Tariq Ali, Howard Brenton, Andy de la Tour: they call themselves "Stigma", and they write "disposable theatre". It took them just one week to write Snogging Ken, a play about the mayoral race. Nina Raine watched them at work

"Salford's Guggenheim"

Architecture - Hugh Aldersey-Williams on how the new Lowry Centre has put Salford on the map

Sitar guru

Music - Dermot Clinch on the man who taught Yehudi Menuhin a thing or two

Retro psycho

Film - Jonathan Romney on the difficulties of filming an unfilmable book

Toiling with Cressida

Theatre - Kate Kellaway doesn't warm to Nicholas Wright's new production

A feel-bad parable

Television - Andrew Billen discovers what sells cars in a documentary of Rover's decline

Toast of the Tiber

Food - Bee Wilson on how to make the perfect bruschetta

Personal Services

Drink - Victoria Moore finds that the man from Oddbins is very much to her taste

Books

A place of greater danger. What is wrong with India? Two new books attempt to explain the historical background to the conflicts blighting the world's largest democracy

Kashmir in conflict: India, Pakistan and the unfinished war
Victoria Schofield, I.B.Tauris, 286pp, £14.95
ISBN 1860645453

India - First-class traveller

India: A History
John Keay HarperCollins, 576pp, £24.99
ISBN 0002557177

Loads-a-money

The Super-Rich
Stephen Haseler Macmillan Press, pp232, £16.99
ISBN 0333764293

You want God?

City of God
E L Doctorow Little, Brown 272pp, £15.99
ISBN 0375408169

Novel of the week

Babylon
Viktor Pelevin Faber, 250pp, £9.99
ISBN 0571202470

Abominable no-men

The Secret Treasury: how Britain's economy is really run
David Lipsey Viking, 278pp, £20
ISBN 0670889261

Observations

Letters to the Editor

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