13 January 2003
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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
Gambling with our future
Casinos wherever you want them; fruit machines that you can play on credit in the hope they will spit out a small fortune. Nick Cohen on how new Labour sold out to the gaming industry
Features
A lesson from Moscow
Benjamin Wegg-Prosser laments Clare Short's failure to renew aid to a school that supports democracy
A victim of homophobia?
Peter Tatchell reveals the story behind Damilola Taylor's murder that both police and media ignore
The prized possession
In the black community, guns command the respect the authorities never show you
Charles Clarke for fairy godmother?
The further education colleges have four million students. Yet you'll read more about Eton than about the whole lot of them. Peter Kingston wants a transformation
Welcome, whoever you are
Fay Weldon, who once wrote a novel about a cloned woman, argues that we will eventually accept clones just as we accept test-tube babies - and rightly so
Essay
NS Essay - 'If the US faced a Europe surrounded by trade barriers, the 21st century could again see armed violence between the great powers'
Everybody, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Home Secretary, is talking about the market state. What does it really mean? Philip Bobbitt, the author of the concept, explains
Regulars
The Politics Column
Politics - John Kampfner reveals an Anglo-US split
Britain feels betrayed by America over Israel. When Sharon wrecked the proposed conference in London, he did so with a nod and a wink from the US defence department
Cristina Odone praises the new Lady Bountifuls
Lady Bountiful is dead. Long live Jamie Oliver and Lord Puttnam!
Darcus Howe suffers a plague of boils
I am struck down by a plague of boils, but saved by a free health service
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Culture clash
At the time of his death last month, Joe Strummer remained one of our most original musicians. John King on the honest voice of punk
The Miller's tale
Photography - Jan Morris is unmoved by a collection of portraits lacking the "flash of poetry"
Past master
Music - Sholto Byrnes on why re-creation is as important as innovation in jazz
Tree spirits
Art - Ned Denny is bewitched by the pagan cruelty behind Arthur Rackham's illustrations
Film
Ducking and diving
Film - Philip Kerr enjoys a boy's action picture that doesn't take itself too seriously
Theatre
Revenge served cold
Theatre - Amy Rosenthal discovers modern parallels with the politics of ancient Rome
Television
No longer just good friends
Television - Andrew Billen on how the sitcom that refuses to die has become a soap opera
Books
Resolved to be irresolute
Observations on Roy Jenkins
Still fighting after all these years. The IRA will never disband. But it may simply fade away once its historic mission is complete. Peter Taylor on the continuing war for a united Irish republic
A Secret History of the IRA Ed Moloney Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 600pp, £20 ISBN 071399665X
Celebrity prisoner
Sir Walter Raleigh Raleigh Trevelyan Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 622pp, £25 ISBN 071399326X
The forever fuel. Rory Spowers on an energy source that could turn the oil industry into a dinosaur
The Hydrogen Economy: the creation of the worldwide energy web and the redistribution of power on earth Jeremy Rifkin Polity Press, 304pp, £50 hbk /£14.99 pbk ISBN 0745630421
Seduced by a panhandle. A N Wilson acclaims a contemporary Dickens
That Old Ace in the Hole Annie Proulx Fourth Estate, 361pp, £17.99 ISBN 0007151519
Tale of the tub
What I Loved Siri Hustvedt Sceptre, 405pp, £14.99 ISBN 034068237X
The virgin suicides
The Illustrated Zuleika Dobson Max Beerbohm, with an introduction by N John Hall Yale University Press, 432pp, £10.99 ISBN 0300097328
Core of celebrity
Dancer Colum McCann Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 292pp, £12.99 ISBN 1897580290
Northside - Andrew Martin on the northern version of the Beano
Oor Wullie and The Broons have displaced the Beano in our home
