02 July 2001

From the Editor…

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Cover story

Best of young British

Who will be shaping the Britain of the future? We've asked panels of five experts in each of the fields of sport, media, politics, literature, arts, business and trouble-making to nominate the young men and women whom they regard as the stars who will make tomorrow's headlines. Here are their choices.

Features

Look to the left and flinch

Is Roy Hattersley right? Will there be a counter-coup against Blair? Jackie Ashley tunes in to restless MPs and furious unions

Will David Trimble join the Tories?

Amid talk of civil war, John Lloyd hears Ulster's First Minister discuss imminent resignation, Sinn Fein's fraudulent election, and a possible change of party

Iain Dale

Welcome to the smart strike

Unions get a bad press if they hurt the public. The wiser ones are exploring new ways to get what they want

Don't let revenge win the day

Kept in prison, Bulger's killers would become full-blown criminals, argues Stephen Tumim

The responsible patient can save the NHS

We should ask not what the NHS can do for us, but what we can do for ourselves

Living up to Somerset Maugham

They drink beer, not gin, and their women are now executives. Otherwise, the expats in Papua New Guinea are a blast from the past. By Stephen Smith

Essay

The New Statesman Essay - Don't just act, talk!

What matters is what works, ministers say. Wrong, argues Michael Jacobs. Means count at least as much as ends, and so does a government's rhetoric

Culture

Delft touch

Vermeer is regarded as the greatest painter of the Dutch Golden Age. But, says Paul Bonaventura, a new exhibition finally restores his lesser-known contemporaries to their place alongside him

All at sea

Portraiture - Judith Palmer on the preening and prancing of our heroes of empire

Mix and match

L S Lowry - Tom Rosenthal on the art and the man

Street life

L S Lowry - Glyn Hughes on the art and the man

Flawed perfection

Giorgio Morandi - Ned Denny finds unprecedented grandeur in ordinary household objects

Star shrek

Film - Charlotte Raven falls in love with a gobshite donkey

Character, not costume

Television - With actors of this calibre, the cliches pale

Books

Great games and proxy wars. Should we fear the Taliban as harbingers of world destruction? Or are they merely simple young men with stylish turbans and grand delusions? Pankaj Mishra visits a ravaged land

Reaping the Whirlwind: the Taliban movement in Afghanistan Michael Griffin Pluto Press, 283pp, £19.99 ISBN 0745312748

Shock troops of sprawl

Fast Food Nation: what the all-American meal is doing to the world Eric Schlosser Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 270pp, £9.99 ISBN 0713996021

Southern soul

Don Quixote's Delusions: travels in Castilian Spain Miranda France Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 243pp, £20 ISBN 0297842773

When the world was flat

The Map that Changed the World: the tale of William Smith and the birth of a science Simon Winchester Viking, 338pp, £12.99 ISBN 0670884073

Novel of the week

A Son of War Melvyn Bragg Sceptre, 426pp, £16.99 ISBN 0340734159

Paperback reader

Bad Blood Lorna Sage Fourth Estate, 281pp, £6.99 ISBN 1841150436

Dangerous men

Patriot Traitors: Roger Casement, John Amery and the real meaning of treason Adrian Weale Viking, 300pp, £20 ISBN 0670884987

The master

Sviatoslav Richter: notebooks and conversations Bruno Monsaingeon (translated by Stewart Spencer) Faber and Faber, 464pp, £25 ISBN 0571205534

Blame the penis

John Donne: man of flesh and spirit David Edwards Continuum, 368pp, £20 ISBN 0826451551

Green heroes

The top ten

20 green heroes and villains: Heroes

Green villains

The top ten

20 green heroes and villains: Villains

Bjorn Lomborg

Cloud control

Cloud control

Interview

Omar Bin Laden

The NS Interview: Omar Bin Laden

What if...

Hugh Gaitskell lived

What if... Hugh Gaitskell had lived

James Macintyre

Brown at war

Like it or not, Brown’s a war leader

Will Self

On brands

We’re all with the brand

Film review

A Serious Man

A Serious Man (15)

Vote!

Will Baroness Ashton be an effective EU foreign minister?

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