04 March 2002

From the Editor…

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Cover story

Lord Snooty and his party pals

New Labour began as a clique, and has governed as a clique, excluding those outside a magic circle. That's why so many people hate Byers

Features

Designer babies and other fairy tales

When states ban contraception or second children or fertility treatment, the female body, once a private matter, becomes a public issue

How to make the traffic flow

A C Graylingthinks his scheme for London's cars is better than Ken Livingstone's

How Mugabe resisted arrest

"His face turned ashen." Peter Tatchell recalls his attempt to bring a tyrant to justice

The poor, alas, are still with us

Another big international conference on how to beat poverty starts any day now. But don't hold your breath for results, advises Barbara Gunnell

Take cover: the English are coming!

Japan, whose football fans stay behind after matches to clear away litter, lives in terror of the hooligans expected for this year's World Cup

IDS: rising from the ashes?

"He's done the Carlton Club, he's done the Monday Club," a shadow minister says. Edward Vaizey finds the Tory leader edging towards a more liberal stance

When the dollars run out

Belize keeps selling off its assets to foreign companies. Now the country is bleeding itself dry to pay electricity, telephone and water bills

Essay

The New Statesman Essay - Mad, bad and dangerous

Whether it's the MMR vaccine or GM foods, people distrust what scientists tell them. And they are perfectly right to do so

Arts & Culture

The common man

For Studs Terkel, chronicler of everyday life, history is in the people. Matthew Dodd considers the long career of the man who interviewed America

Hard cell

Buildings - Razor Smith gives an insider's view of a glossy account of prison architecture

Self-made man

Art - Sue Hubbard on a man who takes apart conventional models of beauty and humanity

Jazz treasury

Radio - Louis Barfe tunes in to the former chancellor

Just a pretty face

Film - Philip Kerr is not impressed by a formulaic story about a mad mathematical genius

One step forward . . .

Television - Andrew Billen finds that black comedy in America is streets ahead

Blind date

Drink - Victoria Moore gets fresh with Robert and friends

Books

The mind of a toy

Living Dolls: a magical history of the quest for mechanical life
Gaby Wood Faber and Faber, 278pp, £12.99
ISBN 0571178790

Girls on top

Fingersmith
Sarah Waters Virago, 416pp, £12.99
ISBN 1860498825

Hurtling towards ruin

Rainbow's End: the crash of 1929
Maury Klein Oxford University Press, 366pp, £22.99
ISBN 0195135164

Wings of desire

The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes
Peter Matthiessen Harvill, 350pp, £20

The Snow Geese
William Fiennes Picador, 246pp, £14.99

Novel of the week

Address Unknown
Kressmann Taylor Souvenir Press, 64pp, £6.99
ISBN 0743412710

Mark of identity

Fingerprints: murder and the race to uncover the science of identity
Colin Beavan Fourth Estate, 232pp, £14.99
ISBN 1841157392

A song for Jo

Jo Grimond: Towards the Sound of Gunfire
Michael McManus Birlinn, 460pp, £20
ISBN 1902301544

Paperback reader

The Horned Man
James Lasdun Jonathan Cape, 195pp, £10.99
ISBN 0224062174

Commentary - Literature in the secret garden

Jason Cowley on "an intimate jewel of a place" where readers meet writers

Tiananmen Square

20 years on

Desperately seeking democracy

Nina Power

Newspeak's legacy

Bamboozle, baffle and blindside

Television

Simon Schama

Simplistic Simon says: “Look at me, everyone!”

Theatre

Liberal guilt

Watch out for the bleeding-heart liberal

Vernon Bogdanor

Worse than Profumo

End of the party

Nicky Wire

The way I see it

Nicky Wire: The way I see it

Vote!

Will China rule the world?

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