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25 September 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

Women: still firmly in their place

More than three years after Labour's election, very little has changed; Westminster remains a man's club

Features

Whistling among the wreckage

That was the week the roof fell in. With the Tories ahead in the polls, should ministers now panic? They can't agree, reports Jackie Ashley

Is this the end for the green agenda?

Tom Burke argues that, because taxes rarely achieve their intended effects, the fuel protests may prove beneficial to the environment, after all

Change the world? Not if you're an MP

If you want justice or lower petrol taxes, don't bother with parliament, advises Mark Lattimer

Sorry, but this is the working class

Loony tunes? Fascists? Paul Barker laments the left's snobbery towards the fuel tax protesters

They are planning to take the piss out of you

If you like a few pints in the evening, beware of the urine test when you clock on next morning, advises Nick Cohen

Where Eubank comes through walls

With casual sex, bodies in trunks and two piers, it's no wonder Brighton is home to the likes of Fat Boy Slim, Julie Burchill and Steve Coogan. Lynne Truss reports

Promises, promises for one and all

With old loyalties gone, politicians must satisfy consumer appetites

Could Labour win without Blair?

Talk about the need to reconnect with the "core vote" really means: down with Tony. Peter Kellnerasks if the PM is dispensable

Say thank you to Mr Brown

This is the first Labour government in history to do more for social justice than it promised

Pssst. . . like a Powergen leaflet?

Why do businesses take stalls at the Labour conference? John O'Farrell suspects a more cunning plot than meets the eye

Hartlepool still awaits its saviour

The economic boom has bypassed Peter Mandelson's constituents. Peter Dunn reveals that their cries for help have been ignored

How Brown got a grip on the euro

The Chancellor has skilfully arranged that a decision on Britain's entry to the single currency is for him and him alone. John Kampfnerreports

How to win over the pensioners

Frank Field offers the Chancellor a new idea for concentrating help on the elderly poor without means-testing their benefits

Where Satan went to find his wife

Returning to his home town of Leicester, where he grew up on a series of sink estates, Nathan Franklin marvels at how foreign the past really is

It's joy for a son of Dunfermline

Matthew Taylor reveals (almost) the people's choice of new Labour Oscars and turkeys

The Co-op faces the barbarians

Demutualisation rages on, but the co-operative movement will resist

Arts & Culture

Wilde disappointment

He was the first modern celebrity, but also the first Irish joke. On the centenary of his death, David Jays asks why this radical dandy was such a Wilde disappointment

Be embraced!

Music - Dermot Clinch on how composers engage with the symphony

Blushing pilgrims

Drama - Scott Peterson witnesses Iran's cultural renaissance

End to normality

Sci-fi - Andrew Martin found echoes of Quatermass and John Wyndham in the fuel crisis

Winds from the east

Film - Jonathan Romney enjoys the elusive atmosphere of a tale from Tehran

Seeking affirmation

Food - Bee Wilson on the scent of chocolate and cauliflower

Iceland bubonic

Drink - Victoria Moore gets the Black Death in Reykjavik

Books

Mr Worsthorne doesn't come here any more

A Short Walk Down Fleet Street
Alan Watkins Duckworth, 272pp, £18
ISBN 0715629107

A new left leader?

England: an elegy
Roger Scruton Chatto & Windus, 270pp, £16.99
ISBN 1856192512

Mass man

The New Elites: making a career in the masses
George Walden Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 209pp, £18.99
ISBN 0713993170

Novel of the week

The Flight of the Maidens
Jane Gardam Chatto & Windus, 278pp, £15.99
ISBN 070116963X

Brothers in arms

The TUC: from the General Strike to the new unionism
Robert Taylor Palgrave, 312pp, £45
ISBN 0333930657

Them and Us

Stardust
John Gribbin with Mary Gribbin Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 198pp, £18.99
ISBN 0713993367

Too much, too young

William Hague: in his own right
Jo-Anne Nadler Politico's, 304pp, £17.99
ISBN 190230165X

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