03 December 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
Who needs 12 when one will do?
Trial by jury was once described as "the lamp that shows that freedom lives". But now, reveals Nick Cohen, the government plans to end two-thirds of all jury trials
Features
How Blair got it utterly wrong
The peace conference is in Germany; Spain is being thanked for tracking down terrorists. So where now is Britain? From Andrew Stephen in Washington
Drop the bomb, pass the buck
In Afghanistan, everybody distrusts everybody else. They even despise themselves. By Gaby Rado in Kunduz
It's cool to say you missed Panorama
Current affairs TV has lost not just the young, but the middle-aged. What can it do? John Lloyd reports
Cook quietly plots his revenge
Andrew Lappinon a man who has lost an empire, but could make a little mischief in his new role
Why we must stop dressing like slags
Pirelli is right: exposed flesh is now middle-class and, therefore, boring
Barbarians build the barricades
Opening soon near you: the gated community, with its own security staff, its own gym and no riff-raff guaranteed. But don't expect a church. Johann Hari reports
When will those trains run on time?
In the 1970s, Anthony Crosland wanted "a smaller, sensible little railway". Such poverty of ambition has dogged rail travel ever since
Essay
The New Statesman Essay - "By 2020, the World Health Organisation expects depression to be the number one health problem"
What with terrorism, the environment, social disintegration and rampant capitalism, pessimism is in fashion. Should we cheer up?
Interview
The New Statesman Interview - Oliver Letwin
Blunkett's shadow admits "people do not pay us much attention" and sounds as if he wants to go home. Oliver Letwin interviewed
Culture
Painted faces
In her own novels, A S Byatt has often evoked the power of portraits. Here, she examines the relationship between writers' and artists' images
Empire strikes back
Tolkien - Sam Hood on how an old classic runs rings around Star Wars
Negative images
Art - Ned Denny on the no man's land between ignorance and enlightenment
Television
Mind the gap
Television - Andrew Billen rates Lucy Blakstad's poetic series on the meanings of bridges
Books
Books of the year
J G Ballard, Joan Bakewell, Lynn Barber, A S Byatt, Eric Hobsbawm, Jan Morris, Ben Pimlott, Ann Widdecombe, Peregrine Worsthorne and others choose their favourite books of 2001
Bookmarks - Five writers, in our occasional series, return to works of great personal or public moment
Jenny Turner on L M Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables
Bookmarks
Edward Skidelsky on Ernst Cassirer's An Essay on Man
Bookmarks
John Gray on T F Powys
Bookmarks
Maureen Freely on Graham Greene's The Quiet American
Bookmarks
Stephen Amidon on Walker Percy's The Moviegoer
