05 August 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

Tony and Gordon want you to be happy

We're richer than ever, we've just been on a giant spending spree, but we're still miserable. Can happiness economics help us?

By Barbara Gunnell

Features

No longer just the bank

By John Kampfner

Europe may have been subsidising the Palestinian Authority, but it has played an insignificant role in the Middle East. Now that will change. By John Kampfner

Americans see us as subordinates

By John Lloyd

Anti-European feeling is running high in America - among the left as well as the right, as John Lloyd discovered at a dinner party in Washington

Finding the real Iraq

By Lindsey Hilsum

In the shadow of their Glorious Leader, Iraqis are struggling with malnutrition and illiteracy. But that's not what the authorities want you to see. Lindsey Hilsum reports

The bumbling, moustachioed terrorists

By Helena Smith

November 17 were part of Greek mythology: bold, daring and secretive, they eluded police for decades. Now, they are being unmasked as plump and banal, reports Helena Smith

The secret partition

By Paul Moorcraft

A plan to split Saudi Arabia gives the Saudis the holy sites and us the oil, George Galloway tells Paul Moorcraft

Interview

NS Interview - Anne Owers

By Mary Riddell

The chief inspector of prisons fears that squalid conditions and overcrowding breach the human rights of some inmates. Anne Owers interviewed

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Good for Alan! (and good for the Tories)

Darcus Howe on killing that comes close to home

By Darcus Howe

My son's stepfather was gunned down by an assassin. Now I worry that he will be next

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

Land of plenty

By Dominic Dromgoole

Anything goes at American theatre festivals. This inclusive spirit encourages a creative diversity lacking in the English cultural diet, discovers Dominic Dromgoole

Shooting stars

By Jillian Edelstein

Photography - Jillian Edelstein on the remarkable woman whose work falls between Marlene Dietrich's legs and sad potato pickers

A dirty business

By Ross Diamond

Advertising - Ross Diamond is amused by a very English brand of tasteless irony

Theatre

Hostess from hell

By Amy Rosenthal

Theatre - Amy Rosenthal finds that the legendary Seventies party has lost its sting

Film

Hitting the base notes

By Philip Kerr

Film - Philip Kerr salutes two vulgar, offensive, puerile icons - Austin Powers and Mozart

Television

Definitely no class act

By Andrew Billen

Television - Andrew Billen on a sitcom about a nouveau-riche clan with no redeeming qualities

Books

Killing the past. As guardians of a people's self-image, historians define the terrain on which wars of national identity are fought - and nowhere more so than in Palestine. By Stephen Howe

By Stephen Howe

The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews Benny Morris IB Tauris, 297pp, £24.50 ISBN 1862075212 Six Days of War: June 1967 and the making of the modern Middle East Michael B Oren Oxford University Press, 464pp, £25 Being Israeli: the dynamics of multiple citizenship Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled Cambridge University Press, 409pp, £15.95 Strangers in the House: coming of age in occupied Palestine Raja Shehadeh Profile Books, 253pp, £9.99