16 September 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
Bush and Blair, on a wing and a prayer
Andrew Stephen, our US editor, watches the leaders of Britain and America at their Camp David summit, and finds alarming evidence that neither man fully grasps the arguments on Iraq
Features
The case for a just war
John Lloyd argues that Iraq should be invaded, but demands that a reasonable account be given of US and British plans for the country after Saddam is overthrown
Welcome to your local school, plc
Ministers want teachers to become entrepreneurs, and sell services to each other
Whose liberty, whose livelihood?
The forthcoming Countryside March is not what it seems. It will be a final, desperate rally for a tribe that has lorded it over us for centuries and is now doomed
How grief turned into humbug
Real war has a beginning and an end. Bush's endless "war on terrorism" stops thought and releases the US from all bounds on its conduct
Essay
NS Essay - The day when heaven was falling
Eric Hobsbawm saw the October revolution as the central reference point of the political universe. In this exclusive extract from his memoirs, he explains why, even when the crimes of Stalin were exposed, he could not bring himself to break with the Communist Party
Regulars
The Politics Column
Politics - John Kampfner asks if Blair will fall like Thatcher
Iraq will be the defining issue of Blair's premiership. Has he become like Margaret Thatcher in her final days, always choosing to fight on the wrong issues?
Mark Thomas reveals shady business in Africa
Why are we using taxpayers' money to arm dictators and to back projects that destroy the environment and displace thousands of men and women from their land?
Darcus Howe warns that Asians will riot again
Yes, Asian rioters were maniacs: they gave themselves up to the police
Andrew Martin finds northerners scoffing the pies
Sidelines - Who ate all the pies? Who ate all the pies? Why it was Leeds, of course . . .
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
National crisis
Visiting celebrities and directors' mounting egos have brought London theatre to an all-time low, writes Sheridan Morley, our new theatre critic
An immodest proposal
Action heroine - Rachel Cooke celebrates the return of the mistress of high kicks and high jinks
La dolce vita
Public space - Malcolm Clark is unconvinced by attempts to "re-imagine" British cities in a Continental style
The golden touch
Opera - Peter Conrad is carried away by an Olympian revival of the myth of Danae
Film
A case of mistaken identity
Film - Philip Kerr enjoys a good, old-fashioned thriller, especially the car chase
Television
No sex please, we're students
Television - Andrew Billen finds College Girls contains nothing titillating at all
The Fan
Hunter Davies thinks Scottish football is too white
The fan - Why can't Scotland win? Too many deep-fried Mars Bars? Or racism?
Books
Pursued by furies. Once condemned to death for treason, Dostoevsky eventually became Russia's national prophet. A S Byatt on an "unrepeatably individual, tormented and brilliant life"
Dostoevsky: the mantle of the prophet, 1871-1881 Joseph Frank Robson Books, 784pp, £29.95 ISBN 0691086656
Amour propre
Man and Wife Tony Parsons HarperCollins, 308pp, £16.99 ISBN 0002261839
The darkness within. John Gray on why the left is in flight from "human nature"
The Blank Slate: the modern denial of human nature Steven Pinker Allen Lane, 509pp, £25 ISBN 0713996722
The ghost in the machine
Keane: the autobiography Roy Keane (with Eamon Dunphy) Michael Joseph, 294pp, £17.99 ISBN 0718145542
Endless shagging
Ash Wednesday Ethan Hawke Bloomsbury, 221pp, £14.99 ISBN 074756003X
