13 May 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 people take to the streets again
In Italy, France, Venezuela, Argentina, the Netherlands, the big issues are being fought through marches and demonstrations. Can democracy stand the heat?
Features
In Saddam's land, they hold their breath
Iraq's streets are full of people buying and selling goods from all over the world. Sanctions have failed. But now the people wait for war. Richard Gott reports from Baghdad
Sarah doesn't go to school any more
Proposals to take a tough line on truants make good talking points for politicians; but they simply terrify Alison, mother of two teenagers. Jenni Russell reports
Why sweat? Be a worm instead
Management gurus claim you need the skills of a boxer to succeed. Wrong: a toady's will do. By Francis Beckett
Essay
The NS Essay - Look out, Prime Minister, that napkin could be dangerous!
Your DNA could dribble anywhere, revealing explosive truths about you. Should we worry? Are liberties threatened? Do we need legislation?
Regulars
Cristina Odone on Barbara Castle's achievements
Barbara Castle changed people's lives for the better. Will our present ministers?
Darcus Howe on Louis Farrakhan
Blunkett has banned a black man who could easily be a new Labour supporter
Mark Thomas considers the colour of Blunkett's dog
New Labour ministers say "bogus asylum-seekers" so often that I think they've been sponsored to say it to raise money for charity
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Alone he did it
Adrian Noble's reputation for unilateralism has been his professional tragedy. But, asks Katherine Duncan-Jones, is the RSC board blameless in his downfall?
On the sly
Opera - Peter Conrad has mixed feelings about the tragic sequel to a Shakespearean comedy
Doig daze
Art - Ned Denny on a landscape painter who invests everyday life with spectral brilliance
Freedom song
Advertising - Ross Diamond says the new Levi's promo is all talk and no trousers
Film
Women's business
Film - Philip Kerr enjoys a low-budget movie that puts the girls on top, for once
Television
I could reet murder a joke, pet
Television - Andrew Billen finds the laugh has gone out of the japes with Britain's top builders
The Fan
The Fan - Hunter Davies meets Terry Venables in the lavatory
At dinner, everyone was in their finery, dressed to kill or score. Then there was a boxing match, and they started shouting and screaming
Books
To remain in splendid isolation. Is Britain's refusal to commit to Europe neurotic or a mark of common sense? John Gray on why Will Hutton is wrong about our place in the world and why there may never be a referendum on the euro
The World We're In Will Hutton Little, Brown, 320pp, £17.99 ISBN 0316858714
Expect blowback
The Clash of Fundamentalisms: crusades, jihads and modernity Tariq Ali Verso, 342pp, £15 ISBN 1859846793 Jihad: the trail of political Islam Gilles Kepel I B Tauris, 454pp, £25
Tomb raider
Scanty Particulars: the life of Dr James Barry Rachel Holmes Viking, 338pp, £14.99 ISBN 0670890995
Novel of the week
Woke Up Laughing Jon Stephen Fink Jonathan Cape, 345pp, £10 ISBN 0224044095
The people's Mo
Momentum Mo Mowlam Hodder & Stoughton, 398pp, £20 ISBN 0340793945
Foreskin Saga
Pandora Jilly Cooper Bantam Press, 558pp, £17.99 ISBN 0593046978
Schoolgirl capers
Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions Philip Larkin. Edited by James Booth Faber and Faber, 498pp, £20 ISBN 0571203477
Wings of desire
Under an English Heaven Robert Radcliffe Little, Brown, 442pp, £12.99 ISBN 0316859907
