29 April 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
Le Pen is mightier . . .
The extreme left did as well as the extreme right in the French election. Both rail against globalisation and try to convince voters that there are simple solutions. By John Lloyd
Features
A campaign that smells like a sausage
France's electoral system, a Gaullist relic, was an accident waiting to happen. It has turned politics into low music hall. David Lawday reports from Paris
The new conservatives: young Britons support capitalism, the monarchy and the family . . .
But a New Statesman poll finds that many 16- to 25-year-olds think Tony Blair is too right-wing (if they can work out where he stands) and they hate Thatcher most of all. Peter Kellner reports
Champagne anarchists
May Day was once for the workers; now it's a protest festival for the wealthy and privileged
Essay
The NS Essay - A target for destructive ferocity
Joseph Conrad's world, where terrorists plotted to blow up the Royal Observatory, speaks to our own. Look no further for a great contemporary novelist. By John Gray
Interview
The NS Interview - Sir John Stevens
The head of the Metropolitan Police asks if our justice system can deal with witnesses who are so alien from the force. Sir John Stephens interviewed
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Starbucks and filthy Lucas
With the much-anticipated release of a new episode in May, Star Wars continues to rule the market place. Philip Kerr expects more of the same hype-filled, mass-produced junk
Bella figura
Opera - Peter Conrad revels in the sexual energy of Strauss
Looking daggers
Art - Ned Denny admires the sculptural sophistication of the caveman's tool kit
There's an urge to be bearded now, since everything seems so glib and phoney
Sidelines - Andrew Martin
Theatre
Situation critical
Theatre - Dominic Dromgoole laments the power of the smug old men of the press
Television
Stories from the edge
Television - Andrew Billen on a series that lays bare lives of society's rejects - but is it all too artful?
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies
In a normal week, my wife, poor soul, will read five books while I watch five games. Fiction is a secret vice; football is for sharing
Books
Eating people is wrong. "I was left moaning on the floor in a foetal position." Will Self reads E O Wilson's new book on the coming environmental catastrophe and despairs
The Future of Life Edward O Wilson Little, Brown, 229pp, £18.99 ISBN 0316648531
My heart is broken
Unless Carol Shields Fourth Estate, 213pp, £16.99 ISBN 0007137702
Cliche-crawling
A A Gill is away A A Gill Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 254pp, £16.99 ISBN 0304362158
Get the beers in
Robot: the future of flesh and machines Rodney A Brooks Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 262pp, £16.99 ISBN 0713995017
Suffragette city. Feminism is not about table dancing or ironic posturing. Michele Roberts on why the fight must go on
No Turning Back: the history of feminism and the future of women Estelle B Freedman Profile Books, 445pp, £20 ISBN 1861973454
Novel of the week
The Man Who Walks Alan Warner Jonathan Cape, 256pp, £10.99 ISBN 0224062948
Books diary
Jason Cowley in New York
