23 September 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

No Go Britain

Crime - Martin Bright detects a defeatist mood among the police, fed by the government's obsession with targets, and warns that the public is rapidly losing confidence in the fight against crime

By Martin Bright

Features

The policing revolution: back to the beat

By Ian Blair

Crime - The battle against crime is far from hopeless, as New York shows. But if we don't learn the right lessons, we risk a return to the early 1800s, and the end of a single public police force

Yah boo to a Daily Mail myth

By Johann Hari

The offspring of poor, dysfunctional families have been dubbed "feral children" by the right-wing press. But they have found a champion in a London charity. By Johann Hari

Primitive, illiterate and untutored?

By Nick Cohen

The Kurds ought to be one of the left's great causes. But opponents of war, who say Saddam's fall would bring chaos, just echo old imperialist attitudes

The case for tyrannicide

By Geoffrey Robertson

It is not an international crime to possess nuclear weapons. We need new laws to deal with despots who violate human rights, argues Geoffrey Robertson

Here, even doctors are not trusted

By Amitava Kumar

In Kashmir, it is said, the disputed border runs through every street, every office, every room. Amitava Kumar reports on a country controlled from bunkers

Sipping tea, as the war clouds gather

By Lucy Irvine

Even on a small, distant island, gazing at the ocean, Lucy Irvine feels power and arrogance in the air. A writers' petition must be drafted, and signatures gathered