26 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

Kill the licence fee

The BBC is financed by a poll tax which turns the poor into criminals and stultifies the intellectual and creative life of the nation. We should get rid of it, argues David Cox

By David Cox

Features

You can be green and still love the poor

By Anthony Browne

There's no longer any need to choose between men and monkeys. Both can be saved - or so the campaigning groups say. Will the Johannesburg summit deliver?

Essay

NS Essay - How the British invented Hinduism

By Pankaj Mishra

By "reviving" the Hindu religion, the middle classes of India hope to turn their country into a world power. Yet before the 19th century, no such religion existed

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Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Who cares if standards are falling?

Cristina Odone on grief for Holly and Jessica

By Cristina Odone

Why do the chatterers try to make us feel ashamed of showing grief and sympathy?

Darcus Howe sees a damp squib in Brixton

By Darcus Howe

On a sunny weekend, a race relations adviser fails to disturb the drug dealers

Diary

Diary - Peter Wilby

By Peter Wilby

The local headlines talked of economic meltdown. Had US corporate corruption finally brought the great Satan to its knees? Alas, no - it was just another South American crisis

This England

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Arts & Culture

Magnum bogus

By Richard Gott

Why is the Foreign Office sponsoring an exhibition of photographs depicting eastern Europe? Richard Gott discovers that old-fashioned agitprop is alive and well

Opera - Under big skies

By Peter Conrad

Peter Conrad discovers Glyndebourne without grass in the New Mexico desert

Art - All-night arty

By Alex Gibbons

Alex Gibbons enjoys a sleepover with Matisse and Picasso

Theatre

Theatre - Continental drift

By Katherine Duncan-Jones

Katherine Duncan-Jones on how Tom Stoppard's study of philosophy and revolution slips its moorings

Film

Film - Holmes, sweet Holmes

By William Cook

William Cook watches a once talented director feed off his own corpse

Television

Television - Return to sender

By Zoe Williams

Zoe Williams isn't gripped by a melodramatic documentary about the anthrax "epidemic"

Drink

Drink - Victoria Moore struggles to open a bottle

By Victoria Moore

Spare me the health warnings. Just tell me how to open the damn bottle

Books

America - Andrew Stephen finds the latest American craze

By Andrew Stephen

Book clubs have become the latest way to prove your intellectual superiority. You choose a highbrow book - and then you buy the crib notes on it so people think you actually read it