06 May 2002

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

Jason Cowley, Editor, New Statesman

Cover story

The man who would be king

He holds cabinet meetings that last half an hour, and gives power to men accountable to nobody but himself: Tony Blair is not a president, he is a monarch. By Nick Cohen

By Nick Cohen

Features

The unions hold their heads up again

By Robert Taylor

Is new Labour finished and the Third Way obsolete? Many on the left think so. Robert Taylor reveals plans to wrest back the ideological high ground

Beyond Ann Hathaway's cottage

By Chris Powell

Chris Powell and Peter York on why it matters that our national brand is muddled and often negative

Essay

The NS Essay - France: into the void

By Joshua Winter

Those who voted for Le Pen belong to a generation which, in the words of one writer, "knows that pleasure is the opposite of happiness".Joshua Winter on a nation's cultural emptiness

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Leader - Blair should know better

Cristina Odone on baby anger

By Cristina Odone

Baby hunger? Think of baby anger among abandoned women, trapped with children

Darcus Howe on the truth about Damilola's death

By Darcus Howe

Damilola's death was an accident; he was just dashing to get home on time

John Pilger on Clare Short's treatment of Ghana

By John Pilger

Clare Short's true commitment is to western capital. In Ghana, her department has made aid money conditional on the privatisation of water

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

Measuring the Richter scale

By Jason Cowley

The critics are hailing Gerhard Richter as the saviour of painting in the age of conceptual populism. Jason Cowley finds out why

Stealing beauty

By Liam Kennedy

Photography - Liam Kennedy on how Ground Zero has been captured by both the lens and the propagandists

Enemy lines

By Richard Cook

Music - Richard Cook on half a century of reporting from the front line of popular culture

Radio

New discoveries

By Louis Barfe

Radio - Louis Barfe listens to some old stories recorded in the sixpence-a-go booth

Film

Verity schmerity

By Philip Kerr

Film - Philip Kerr on why an obsession with reality does not bring us closer to the truth

Television

The terrible result of a one-night shag

By Zoe Williams

Television - Zoe Williams can't believe one man's story about his exploitation by a Swedish lady

The Fan

The fan - Hunter Davies celebrates football's Best

By Hunter Davies

George Best's glamorous young wife was amazed to read what I had written about her husband in 1965. Could he ever have been so shy, so naive, so non-drinking?