16 December 2002
Become a subscriber and save £££
Subscribe to the New Statesman for just £82 and receive a free copy of Roy Hattersley’s In Search of England(Hardcover)
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
Features
How Blair put 30,000 more in jail
Nick Cohen traces the Prime Minister's long march to the right on crime - a journey that he began as home affairs spokesman nearly a decade ago
The firefighters' secrets of spin
Despite Gilchrist's mega-blunder, the fire dispute shows that union PR has got smarter
Poverty: the uphill struggle
Gordon Brown is generous to the poor. Alas, it's only just enough to make things better
Conspiracy theories: a guide
Even the Queen, according to the ex-butler Paul Burrell, thinks that we should watch out for "dark forces at work". The year 2002 suggested that she is right. Nasa issued an official denial that it had faked the moon landings (and you know what a denial means, don't you?). The founder of Opus Dei, a secretive Catholic sect said to have infiltrated the Vatican, was canonised. We assess the best plots and, if we've left out crucial details, it's because we're in on the act
So . . . how was it for you?
Trouble with the firefighters and trade unions, trouble over Iraq and Cherie: Tony Blair has not had an annus mirabilis. Is his project doomed - or just flagging? By John Kampfner
Our man in the land of Zam Zam Cola
Christina Lamb meets Britain's lone crusader in the Arab world, trying to win hearts and minds: he's 29, speaks Arabic with a Palestinian accent and is a star on al-Jazeera
What a difference you can make
As Africa faces the worst humanitarian crisis in decades, westerners have grown cynical and no longer respond to media appeals. Can the aid agencies stir our interest again? By Barbara Gunnell
Villages reach the tipping point
Many small communities are now very close to losing nearly all their shops and services, reports David Boyle
Return of the happy shoeshine boy
In Cape Town, Steven Berkoff finds the blacks smiling and all too eager to offer help. Just don't mention their pay: you may get an Armed Response
Is man too wicked to be free?
In France, an intellectual has caused a furore by denouncing his fellow leftists for covertly reactionary views. John Lloyd finds illumination in this quarrel
NS Obituary - Lynton Charles
Lynton Baines Charles MP, politician and Labour strategist, 1952-2002. A tribute
The invisible workers
People like Marianna, a doctor, clean our toilets, sweep our roads, care for our elderly. They shouldn't be here; perhaps that's why we don't see them. Graham Bowley reports
Why Iceland is hot
Jason Cowley visits Europe's nearest approximation to a classless society, and asks what secrets lurk in the dark
Kick the advertisements out
Our city halls and railway stations are being defaced by commerce and lack all sense of civic space. New York offers a better example
Ghosts in the city of widows
When their husbands die, devout Indian women make the pilgrimage to Vrindavan, where they will pray for others, and await their own deaths
The rise of Mblaireki
Mandela's successor is under fire from his allies, particularly in the unions. He calls them ultra-leftists who line up with the ultra-right; they say the people are ultra-hungry
The New Statesman Dirty Quiz
It's been a year of filthy revelations and dastardly deeds. Test your knowledge of the scandals by trying our contributors' questions. Contributors include John Gray, James Harkin, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Andrew Martin and Annalisa Barbieri
Quotes of the year: boobs and barbs
With Bush over there and Prescott over here, most of 2002's memorable utterances didn't quite convey what the speakers intended. Compiled
The gods meet fire with fire
The fundamentalists have hijacked religion since 11 September; and the secular fundamentalists are as dangerous as the Christian, Islamic and Jewish varieties
Essay
NS Essay 1 - 'The rulers of the United States have embarked on policies that violate the principles of open society'
George Soros recalls how the writings of Karl Popper were the formative influence on his life, and argues that, since 11 September, the Bush administration has flouted the principles outlined in Popper's most famous work
NS Essay 2 - 'For Britain, joining Europe was associated with national decline and loss of great power status'
In all EU countries, the masses are sceptical about the union. Only in Britain is scepticism shared among significant sections of the elite. Alexej Behnisch explains why
NS Christmas Essay 1 - The myth of secularism
Religion is a natural human impulse, which our society tries to repress just as the Victorians did sex. That is why atheists are so rancorous and intolerant
NS Christmas Essay 2 - Don't forget your teddy bear, Dad
One in every six toys sold in the UK ends up in the lap of an adult; Americans are even more addicted to childish things. A search for comfort in a harsh world?
NS Christmas Essay 3 - How gluttony went out of fashion
Whatever you eat this Christmas, you won't match Clodius Albinus, who downed 500 figs at a sitting. And if you're affluent you won't even try
Regulars
John Pilger reveals the American plan
Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush said what America needed was "a new Pearl Harbor". Its published aims have come alarmingly true
Darcus Howe advises us to stay away from Guyana
Keep away from Guyana, where my friend was given a pistol as an act of welcome
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
How to keep warm and look cool
It used to be the unwanted present from an elderly aunt. So how did the woolly hat become fashionable?
Worst Britons
Sick of hearing how great we are? The BBC's panellists join NS writers for an alternative contest to identify the nation's nasties
Wonderland
Art - Ned Denny is captivated by sculptures that gaze into the world of living things
Camp life
Photography - Alan Sillitoe on why, as an alternative to Borstal, Butlin's wasn't all that bad
Bald ambition
Music - Richard Cook explains how the boy from Pinner became the greatest rocker on earth
Theatre
A golden year
Theatre - Maureen Lipman welcomes the triumph of age and experience on the stage
Television
Invite to an orgy
Television - Andrew Billen proclaims a victory in the campaign for more sex on our screens
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies gives out his booby prizes
The award for letting in goals our tortoise could have stopped goes to . . .
Books
The Year's Midnight
A short story written for the New Statesman
The one bright book of life
Once revered as a "great genius of our time", D H Lawrence has today become something of a national joke. A S Byatt defends the ambition and vision of a writer considered increasingly unworthy of being taught at our universities
Notes towards a supreme fiction
"The reviewing of novels," wrote Cyril Connolly, "is the white man's grave of journalism; it corresponds to building bridges in some impossible tropical climate." Julian Evans on David Lodge, Cyril Connolly and the vanishing art of the literary essay
The long road to oblivion
D J Taylor on the life and death of William Cooper, a once celebrated writer whose recent funeral was attended by just 16 people
Cooking the books
Jonathan Ray on our modern obsession with food
"I die loving England"
William Cook rereads The Riddle of the Sands, "the first spy novel"
Don't give up the day job
Disraeli wrote a great novel. Winston Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Roy Hattersley is a famed essayist. But are there any good writers among today's MPs? Johann Hari spends a week reading politicians' novels, including the new thriller by Iain Duncan Smith
The year in review
The literary editor's Christmas recommendations
