24 July 2000

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

Jason Cowley, Editor, New Statesman

Cover story

Miserable small-mindedness

Last month at Banff, in the Canadian Rockies, the BBC's director of television, Mark Thompson, suggested that the corporation might abandon mixed television schedules and hive off serious programming to "genre-based" channels. He justified this move by arguing that most viewers considered that "elite culture" appealed only to a diminishing minority. Thompson called those who he thought might object to the new strategy "Britain's cultural police". The "Kojak" of these cultural policemen, he suggested, was John Tusa, formerly a presenter of Newsnight and currently running London's Barbican arts centre. Now, Tusa replies

By John Tusa

Features

An end to public squalor

By William Keegan

William Keeganrejoices that, for all his strange pre-Keynesian noises, Brown has at last embraced high spending. But he will still need, one day, to raise taxes

Victims of zero tolerance

By Nick Cohen

A bitterly fought case in Cambridge highlights how, in the war against drugs, even middle-class charity workers become potential criminals

The fight for TV's toothless comb

By David Cox

Who cares whether Granada or Carlton wins? The real question is whether ITV can survive at all, argues David Cox

Don't let the train take the strain

By Ben Plowden

Ben Plowdenargues that more road humps would be better value than Prescott's big schemes

Twelve steps to heaven and No10

By Celia Brayfield

Celia Brayfielddetects the hand of Alcoholics Anonymous in new Labour's approach

A true star, or just a dry old trout?

By Quentin Letts

Praise has been lavished on Betty Boothroyd as she retires as Speaker of the House. But was she really so good at her job?

You'll find no refuge here

By Scarlett MccGwire

The Afghan hijacking was a desperate plea for help. We were deaf to it

Caring, sharing Toronto is no more

By Scott Lucas

Canada's welfare state was once held up as a shining example. The influence of ultra-conservatives in Ontario is changing all that, reports Scott Lucas

Streets that white folk fear to tread

By Bryan Rostron

Bryan Rostron, mugged in Johannesburg, finds himself with mourners for a war criminal

A rumble in the blackboard jungle

By Francis Beckett

Francis Beckett reveals the full, hitherto untold story of the clash between Chris Woodhead, the chief inspector of schools, and his main liberal critic