28 May 2001

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

And men shall speak unto men

Election 2001 - This election is an almost wholly woman-free zone. Four years after the great photocall, why aren't Blair's Babes in the front line?

By Jackie Ashley

Features

Nobody is watching, nobody cares

By Jackie Ashley

Election 2001 - Manifestos, leaflets and press releases pour out, but the Scandinavian forests are dying in vain, reports Jackie Ashley

Vote before you turn out the lights

By James Buchan

Election 2001 - James Buchan joins the candidates in North Norfolk where, amid the second homes, you can just detect the remains of a rural Labour working-class vote

Campbell should get out and solve problems on the bus

By Charlie Whelan

Election 2001 - Charlie Whelan awards marks to the parties for their campaigning and spinning so far

How to dress if you are seeking office

By Annalisa Barbieri

Election 2001 - Annalisa Barbieri, our election fashion correspondent, imagines Prescott in Kevlar and Widders with a gay friend

Why I am now banned from talking to Tories

By Nick Cohen

Election 2001 - Nick Cohen found himself unable to agree with Ann Widdecombe on the difference between a prison and a reception centre. He was punished swiftly and severely

They've got their eyes on what's under the kilt

By Tom Brown

Election 2001 - Scotland

Politics just isn't good enough

By Tom Bentley

Generation Next - Tom Bentley finds that our young people are not Naomi Klein. But nor are they Beavis and Butthead

A school? No, let's have a spa instead

By Alice Woolley

Bath has odd priorities, which include providing mucky water to the rich. Alice Woolley reports

The ghosts of empire haunt the city of night and joy

By Jeremy Seabrook

The fractious memsahibs and exuberant soldiers of the Raj may lie dead and buried, but Calcutta's tourists are merely the camp-followers of a new imperialism

Culture wars hit the nursery

By Frank Furedi

Do young children really suffer from daycare? Only if society sends out the message that working mothers are bad mothers, argues Frank Furedi

The left should love globalisation

By Mark Leonard

Antonio Negri, a Marxist sentenced to 30 years for supporting terrorism in Italy, has now turned conventional thinking on its head

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

The perils of the second term

Paul Routledge

By Paul Routledge

Tweedledum and Tweedledee seek your votes. And guess which is further to the right?

By John Pilger

The night that 13 black teenagers died

By Darcus Howe

I met the publicity officer. "Since when," I asked, "do schools need publicity?"

By Lauren Booth

Competition - Win a bottle of champagne

Culture

Fanny girls

By Dorothy Gallagher

Say "cunt" for a good cause? Backed by the Vulva Choir, Eve Ensler is giving the vagina an airing worldwide. But Dorothy Gallagher finds that it's all twaddle