13 August 2001
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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
Cover story
The diva of Downing Street
Forget the comparisons with Diana, at heart Cherie Blair really sees herself as that other female icon, Madonna
Features
What exactly are the British good at?
Westminster
Clause that will savage the NHS
The new Health and Social Care Act allows public money to finance private hospitals. Yet it has passed unnoticed - until now
Dreams are as American as apple pie
A poor teenager has become a legal eagle by watching Court TV. He is just the latest proof that, in the US, you can still be anything you want. John Lloyd reports
Here comes the Fat Controller
It doesn't matter who the proprietor of a broadcasting station is: all you need is a strong regulator. By David Cox
Protect the freedom to shock
From Galileo to Darwin, heretics who offend have taken society forward, teaching us that free speech is for all, regardless of their views
Has Tony got the wrong friends?
The Prime Minister's flirtation with far-right politicians is undermining the cause of social democracy in Europe, warns Robert Taylor
Culture
Coming clean
A new exhibition celebrates the aesthetics of the soap powder box. Despite our obsession with hygiene, we are making the world dirtier
The rise of the White King
Judith Williamson considers the dark history of brand packaging
Battle of the brandosaurs
Corporate Television - Malcolm Clark on how the major TV channels have averted extinction
Making waves
Art - Ned Denny discovers how the sea brings out the blues in modern artists
So what next?
Music - Richard Cook enjoys a harmonious awards ceremony
Television
God makes another sell
Television - Andrew Billen feels a mild stirring of the spirit on watching Alpha
Books
A philosophical investigation. Britain was always on the margins of 20th-century intellectual life. Edward Skidelsky on how the French and the Germans won the battle of ideas
Routledge Classics Various authors
Paperback reader
Touching from a Distance Deborah Curtis Faber and Faber, 212pp, £9.99 ISBN 0571174450
Shaggy dog story
Laurence Sterne: a life Ian Campbell Ross Oxford University Press, 512pp, £25 ISBN 0192122355
Why are so many Indian books about pickles? A tedious brand of Stalinist realism stalks subcontinental writing today. Akash Kapur on why Indian literature remains a genre in search of its own definition
The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature Edited by Amit Chaudhuri Picador, 653pp, £16.99 ISBN 0330343637
Novel of the week
Johannes Climacus: a life of doubt Soren Kierkegaard, translated by T H Croxall, edited by Jane Chamberlain Serpent's Tail, 96pp, £7.99 ISBN 1852426691
Mack the knife
The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps Michel Faber Canongate Books, 122pp, £9.99 ISBN 1841951994
