11 December 2000
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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
Features
In Nice, who cares about John Bull?
David Lawdayfinds most EU members have their minds on other things than British vetoes
Shape up or ship out, Portillo
The shadow chancellor is clearly in a state, but the Tories can't afford to offer him much sympathy.
Where even the milk float has armour
It needed a murder to get anybody interested in the Peckham estate
Scientists gang up on organics
Simon Jones on how big business tries to stem the popularity of pesticide-free food
So close and yet so despised
It took Unesco to recognise the contribution a town in Gwent made to history. Ziauddin Sardar on how the Welsh were the first victims of English racism
Don't give up the day job, Britney
Once, writing was a vocation. Now it is just something that multi-talented celebrities fit into their busy schedules
In England's wet and windy land
Even flooding discriminates socially. As the waters recede, Judy Hirst finds the poor at the back of the queue for future protection
Israel's third-class citizens learn to stand proud
The real threat to the Jewish state comes from within its borders, where Arabs increasingly adopt an Islamic identity, reports Faisal Bodi
Help the over-50s work part-time
NS/Fabian Society Second-Term Agenda - Help the over-50s work part-time
Stand up to the media giants
A white paper is set to reflect the view of ministers and wonks that they can do nothing to stop the likes of Murdoch. They are wrong, argues David Cox
Essay
The New Statesman Essay - The press and the swinish multitude
Can those who look down on the popular papers really call themselves the workers' friends?
Interview
The New Statesman Interview - Gus Macdonald
You may struggle to get to work, but the minister for transport is quite clear: there is no crisis on the railways. Gus Macdonald interviewed
Culture
Something sensational
The published diary is a vital element of our culture, a record of manners and history. But what will become of it, asks Andrew Lycett, in this age of obsession with instant celebrity
King Edouards
Art - Michaela Gall on the insolent modernity of Manet's still lifes
Sade but true
Music - Richard Cook just can't get into the groove of Sade's new album
Street lies
Social Realism - Patrick West argues that Coronation Street represents a reality it has helped to destroy
Television
Art of this world
Television - A channel devoted to culture has been launched. But how highbrow is it, askAndrew Billen
Books
Rise of the celebrity victim. After the Dunblane massacre, the suffering of the bereaved was seen as a qualification to pronounce on society's ills. Mick Hume on the dangers of a new emotionalism
Dunblane: never forget Mick North Mainstream Publishing, 303pp, £9.99 ISBN 1840183004
Cheeky boys
Dumbstruck: a cultural history of ventriloquism Steven Connor Oxford University Press, 449pp, £25 ISBN 0198184336
Flip side of decency
The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt, Volume 3 Edited by Sarah Curtis Macmillan, 843pp, £25 ISBN 033377406X
I saw the world end
Journey to Portugal Jose Saramago Harvill Press, 463pp, £20 ISBN 1860467040
Novel of the week
Rough Music Patrick Gale Flamingo, 374pp, £9.99 ISBN 0002261219
Whistle-blowers
Gassed: a history of British chemical warfare experiments on humans Rob Evans House of Stratus, 500pp, £20 ISBN 1842320718
Radical chic
The Quarrel of the Age: the life and times of William Hazlitt A C Grayling Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 399pp, £25 ISBN 0297643223
Pastoral fatalism
The New Penguin Book of English Verse Edited by Paul Keegan Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1184pp, £20 ISBN 0713992107 The Faber Book of Landscape Poetry Edited by Kenneth Baker Faber & Faber, 437pp, £25
