09 December 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

Why the French call us Londonistan

The pressure is on to dump civil liberties. Incredible as it may seem to us, Tony Blair is accused by our Continental neighbours, and even by the US, of being soft on Muslim troublemakers. His reward, they suggest, is British immunity from Arab attacks. By John Kampfner, NS political editor

By John Kampfner

Features

The "no platform" issue returns to the campuses

By Johann Hari

Rival student groups argue about boycotts of Muslims and Jews

Against the western invaders

By David Nicholson-Lord

With the world in turmoil, tourists will have to realise that to carry on partying or trying to "find oneself" is at least in questionable taste

Discriminate more, not less

By Francis Beckett

Are universities giving preferential treatment to state school pupils, and rejecting private school pupils with better A-levels? No, finds Francis Beckett, but they ought to be

Essay

NS Essay - 'The men and women who control broadcasting believe that television is an idiot's lantern'

By David Cox

TV executives, brought up on written culture, lack faith in the capacity of a visual medium to make sense of the news. Yet "ordinary people" constantly urge their betters to raise their sights. By David Cox

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

How panic threatens civil liberties

Mark Thomas wonders if Saddam's men recycle paper

By Mark Thomas

Just under two years ago, Jack Straw believed that Iraq's security forces were even-handed and just. Why, I bet they used recycled paper and were equal opportunities employers, too

Darcus Howe condemns a race relations leader

By Darcus Howe

This disgraced race relations leader should not get a single penny more

Paul Routledge reveals a secret meeting

By Paul Routledge

Labour MPs' secret tryst with firefighters, a hacks' quarrel, and the vanishing socialist

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

The big smoke

By Lilian Pizzichini

London's killer fogs inspired artists and provided novelists with the perfect emblem of a sinful city. Fifty years after the 1952 smog, Lilian Pizzichini looks back at our filthy past

Strange but true

By Ned Denny

Art - Ned Denny on a graduate show in which the uncanny too often becomes ordinary

Nothing is sacred

By Peter Conrad

Opera - Peter Conrad on a Tosca where religion and politics are subsumed by carnal appetite

Film

Dancing with the enemy

By Philip Kerr

Film - Philip Kerr discovers magic in Peru, but fails to fall under Harry Potter's latest spell

Theatre

The X-factor

By Johann Hari

Theatre - Johann Hari investigates the latest invasion from planet Hollywood

Television

Everything but the truth

By Andrew Billen

Television - Andrew Billen enjoys an affectionate satire on the life and lies of Jeffrey Archer

The Fan

The fan - Hunter Davies sees a judge don a pom-pom hat

By Hunter Davies

The judge put something on his head. But it was a pom-pom hat, not a wig

Books

The tyrant with a mobile phone. Saddam Hussein and his regime are better compared with Sicily's Corleone family than with Hitler and the Nazis. Take away the hostile rhetoric, and he is simply a typical tribal chief from Mesopotamia who happens to be at home in the modern, urban world. Richard Gott on the latest batch of books about Iraq

By Richard Gott

Saddam Hussein: an American obsession Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn Verso, 320pp, £9 pbk ISBN 1859844227 Saddam: the secret life Con Coughlin Macmillan, 350pp, £20 Targeting Iraq: sanctions and bombing in US policy Geoff Simons Saqi Books, 242pp, £14.99 War Plan Iraq: ten reasons against war on Iraq Milan Rai Verso, 240pp, £10 pbk The West and the Rest: globalisation and the terrorist threat Roger Scruton Continuum, 187pp, £12.99