04 December 2000

From the Editor…

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Cover story

Goodbye to the dirty mac image

Pornography, once a seedy, marginal industry, has become a respectable, multimillion-pound business, bigger than Hollywood

Features

Arms sales: will Labour act?

Until now, there has been no ethical dimension to British exports. But the Queen's Speech may show that things are changing

They may listen, but they won't tell

Freedom of information? Ministers will go to any lengths even to avoid answering MPs' questions, reports Nick Cohen

Here's a real threat to sovereignty

Stop fretting about Brussels and watch out for Gats 2000, advises Barbara Gunnell

Climate talks collapse: rejoice, rejoice!

The deal on offer at the global warming conference in The Hague was so useless that we are better off with a clean slate, argues Zac Goldsmith

Conviction journalists

John Lloyd on the right-wing commentators who have brought Tony Blair to boiling point

The New Statesman Special Report - Why justice isn't working

The legal system now favours the prosecution so strongly that we must expect more and more wrongful convictions, argues Bob Woffinden

At least they could polish their shoes

You can spot British politicians by their drab and shapeless clothing, writes Annalisa Barbieri

Cut class sizes to 20 in poor areas

NS/Fabian Society Second-Term Agenda - Cut class sizes to 20 in poor areas. By Joe Hallgarten and Gavin Kelly of the IPPR

Sledge ride to seven heavens of Nenets

In a remote corner of Siberia, Oliver Ready meets a woman who is conducting an experiment in social engineering. Her targets: the children of herdsmen

Forget cool: it's greedy Britannia now

From Asian Babes to Zeta Jones, ours is an unashamedly decadent society

Culture

Playing away

What do opera and adultery have in common? Richard Sennetton how music keeps up with illicit love

Sold short

Art - Michael Glover talks to Leon Golub

It's got to be perfect

Music - Wendy Holden on the purge of weirdos in the contemporary pop world

The state of sodomy

Film - Joan Bakewell slopes off to view Pasolini's most controversial film

Suburban Babylon

Film - Jonathan Romney contemplates a wistful elegy to small-town America

Pumping up the sex

Television - Andrew Billen wonders if Kingsley Amis provides enough substance for a BBC drama

Books

The drugs don't work

Opium: a portrait of the heavenly demon Barbara Hodgson Souvenir Press, 152pp, £16.99 ISBN 081182411X Emperors of Dreams: drugs in the 19th Century Mike Jay Dedalus, 277pp, £9.99

Ugly duckling

Hans Christian Andersen: the life of a storyteller Jackie Wullschlager Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 506pp, £20 ISBN 0713993251

Action man

The Ashdown Diaries: volume one - 1988-1997 Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 638pp, £20 ISBN 0713995106

Novel of the week

Too Far Afield Gunter Grass Faber & Faber, 672pp, £25 ISBN 0571190162

What the butler saw

Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American boom Bob Woodward Simon & Schuster, 270pp, £17.99 ISBN 0743204123

Commentary - Towards a paperless future

Christopher Gassonanalyses the changes taking place in the world of e-books

The interview

Preview: Ken Livingstone: “The world is run by monsters”

The interview

Preview: Boris Johnson: “I’ll tell you what makes me angry – lefty crap”

On Syria

Intervention in Syria won’t work, so how do we stop Assad?

GOP race so far

Infographic: Republican primary race 2012

Mind your B-sides

Mind your B-sides

Time to rethink

Time to rethink, not reassure

Who minds?

Latter Day Taint?

Alistair Darling

Alistair Darling, the Miliband dilemma and what the party must do next
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