01 July 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 end of the affair?

For years, about half of Britain seems to have been in love with Tony Blair. But there are signs that the famous smile may at last be turned against him

By John Kampfner

Features

The lesson the Prime Minister forgot

By Nick Cohen

Nick Cohen talks to Peter Thomson, the guru who guided Blair to the Christian socialism of John Macmurray, and finds that he is not quite at one with new Labour

Drink up and play the game

By Ross Diamond

Can a soccer star any longer distinguish between playing football and promoting his sponsors' products? After this World Cup, Ross Diamond doubts it

Why psychiatry has failed

By Peter Watson

We can fly to the moon and tap genetic secrets, but human beings are as badly behaved and as miserable as ever. Is it because shrinks rely too much on words?

The rebels with raging hormones

By Helena Smith

"In Iran," said the businessman, "we do everything - sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. It's just that we do it behind closed doors." And they talk about it incessantly, as Helena Smith discovered

Essay

NS Essay - Globalisation: now the good news

By Charles Leadbeater

Pessimists of left and right agree: we are a degenerate society, betrayed by our lust for change and obsession with fashion. Yet the world is getting better faster than ever before

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

The fat cats who cooked the books

Cristina Odone on top tennis totty

By Cristina Odone

Men like tennis girls because they play out in the open - by rules men can understand

Darcus Howe applauds blacks in the World Cup

By Darcus Howe

Blacks usually support Brazil because they look like us; this time, we were for England

John Pilger on Israel and the media

By John Pilger

If you got your news only from the television, you would have no idea of the roots of the Middle East conflict, or that the Palestinians are victims of an illegal military occupation. John Pilger reports

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

The burden of the present

By Charles Leonard

As racial tensions rise in South Africa, music has become the site of a nation's struggle for cultural and ethnic identity

Chaos theory

By Peter Conrad

Opera - Peter Conrad discovers a disruptive spirit at the heart of Haydn

Face value

By Emily Mann

Art - Emily Mann on the 18th-century equivalent of the celebrity photo-shoot

Wail of a time

By Jason Cowley

Music - Jason Cowley on the lonely soundscapes of the multimillion-selling Moby

Film

Overexposed

By Philip Kerr

Film - Philip Kerr on what happens when women take their clothes off

Television

Like a hawk into a dovecote

By Andrew Billen

Television - Andrew Billen is moved by love stories that should have been heard but not seen

The Fan

The Fan - Hunter Davies learns of a heart attack

By Hunter Davies

I've been sitting in front of the telly for weeks, stuffing myself with crisps and cheap white wine. And now I get a letter saying I've had a heart attack. Or similar

Books

Artist of the floating world . Elmore Leonard's great gift is to show us as we really are: with little inner life or any real faith in the future. John Gray on a hard-edged master of the spoken word

By John Gray

Tishomingo Blues Elmore Leonard Viking, 320pp, £16.99 ISBN 0670912956

Now or never

By Mark Almond

The Shield of Achilles: war, peace and the course of history Philip Bobbitt Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 922pp, £25 ISBN 0713996161

Presumed innocent. Michael Barrett on the contentious life and work of David Livingstone, "the first African freedom fighter"

By Michael Barrett

David Livingstone: mission and empire Andrew Ross Hambledon and London, 304pp, £19.95 ISBN 1852852852 David Livingstone Meriel Buxton Palgrave, 232pp, £45