25 February 2002
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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 unusual suspects
Rupert Murdoch, Bernie Ecclestone, the Hindujas, Berlusconi, and now Lakshmi Mittal: can these really be the right friends for a Labour leader?
Features
The odd couple enrage the left
Blair's alliance with the Italian premier Berlusconi has led to calls for new Labour's expulsion from the ranks of European socialists. John Lloyd reports
Elections, spies and videotape
They met at the RAC Club in London. They plotted to kill Robert Mugabe. Or did they? Lindsey Hilsum on a strange encounter
For a proper public service, try Murdoch
The BBC has abandoned any pretensions to quality, putting out trash when commercial channels schedule good programmes
Future looks good with 2020 vision
Forget about sleaze and spin, the proposals of the new energy report could change the world we live in for ever. Geoffrey Lean is happier than he expected
Appreciation: Donald Gould
The New Statesman's first medical correspondent
The masters of misinformation
Behind the Jo Moore affair lies a spin machine that has corrupted the senior civil service itself, report Nicholas Jones and Stuart Weir
Ulster lives out its Groundhog Day
Sectarian divisions are more deeply felt among Belfast's young people than among any other age group, as Johann Hari found when he talked to them
To save half a million children is a privilege
When Britain watched Africans die of a deliberately created famine in 1968, Frederick Forsythand others got angry
Essay
The New Statesman Essay - Nothing left to belong to
"Know thyself," said Socrates. In today's world, how can we?
Culture
Licensed to print money
Fifty years ago, Ian Fleming sat down to write the first Bond book. Since then, 007 has become a global brand, but also a grotesque parody of the novels
Crazy for you
Psychosis - Roy Porter welcomes the demise of the mad genius
Pope of pop
Art - Holly Johnson on the unearthly powers of the man in the silver wig
Asset management
Fashion - Malcolm Clark on why no self-respecting man would be seen dead wearing a skirt
Theatre
Lear jet
Theatre - Katherine Duncan-Jones on a fast-moving production with a few too many gizmos
Television
Doing us justice
Television - Andrew Billen finds a new ITV drama not guilty on many counts
Books
Why terrorism is unbeatable. Revolutionary nihilism of the kind embodied by al-Qaeda is not a throwback to the past but part of what it means to be modern. John Grayreviews the reaction to 11 September and argues that Americans, like the rest of us, must learn to live with such shocks
Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia Ahmed Rashid Yale University Press, 272pp, £16.95 ISBN 0300093454
In the men's room
Woman of Today: An Autobiography Sue MacGregor Headline, 342pp, £20 ISBN 074724989X
Model behaviour
White Mice Nicholas Blincoe Sceptre, 245pp, £10.99 ISBN 0340750464
Fiction of the week
The Hunters Claire Messud Picador, 181pp, £12.99 ISBN 0099422697
Ducking 'n' diving
Dead Men's Wages: the secrets of a London conman and his family Lilian Pizzichini Picador, 267pp, £15.99 ISBN 0330484451
Paperback reader
The Dying Animal Philip Roth Vintage, 176pp, £6.99 ISBN 0099422697
Tragic realism
Robert D Kaplan's books may be out of print in Britain, but he is emerging as one of the most influential commentators on the new world order. By Parag Khanna
