03 March 2003

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

What has America ever done for us?

Was the US really at Britain's side at her moments of greatest national need - the Second World War, for example, or the Falklands war? Francis Beckett finds the special relationship rather one-sided

By Francis Beckett

Features

"Immature, immoral, vulgar, materialistic . . ."

By Robert Taylor

How Britons viewed Yanks in the 1940s

Where your Mercedes comes with a helicopter

By Liz McGregor

Carjacking, the number one crime in South Africa, makes for unusual security measures, reports Liz McGregor

An official license to kill

By Theodore Dalrymple

Methadone, far from being the best way to help heroin addicts, as the government claims, is just another killer. There is no quick fix for the heroin problem, now or ever. Instead, we need social reform

Essay

NS Essay - The secrets of happiness

By Richard Layard

Despite growing affluence, the average Briton is more miserable than ever. Why? Because when people get extra income, it makes their neighbours sad

Interview

NS Interview - John Reid

By John Kampfner

Iraq is a socialist war, says the Labour Party chairman but, like Churchill in 1940-45, we can't be picky about allies. John Reid interviewed

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

The perils of cheap energy

Cristina Odone welcomes the death of the car

By Cristina Odone

The age of the car is drawing to a close. You can't even have sex in it now

Darcus Howe explains empty seats on Air Jamaica

By Darcus Howe

The bastards whom Jamaicans in Britain are happy to see deported

John Pilger laughs (darkly) at Tony Blair

By John Pilger

When Saddam hanged a British journalist in 1990, MI5 had the journalist smeared in the Sun, and the Mail agreed he was a spy. What did Blair say? I can find nothing

The alternative voice - Julian Fellowes backs IDS

By Julian Fellowes

IDS has finally decided to be a Tory. The Caring Conservative, a party of the right that essentially boasted every quality of the left, was a mistake

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

The final cut

By Peter York

As smoking became more reviled, so tobacco campaigns were forced to become ever more creative. With the end of the cigarette ad, Peter York looks back on a golden age of advertising

Anvil of angst

By Will Self

Music - Massive Attack were the soundtrack of the 1990s. Will Self on why the Bristol boys still outclass their rivals

Pounds of flesh

By Jerry Brotton

Reputation - Jerry Brotton on how our love affair with Titian led to the creation of public galleries

Three colours white

By Ned Denny

Art - Ned Denny explores the infinite possibilities of emptiness and absence

Film

Painting by numbers

By Philip Kerr

Film - Philip Kerr wishes this reverential life of fiery Frida Kahlo was less well behaved

Theatre

Stealing the show

By Sheridan Morley

Theatre - Sheridan Morley enjoys a week of new arrivals and one-person performances

Television

Head to head: a flea and a louse

By Andrew Billen

Television - Andrew Billen on a new American sitcom that breaks taboos

The Fan

The fan - Hunter Davies asks if our fans could sing in Dutch

By Hunter Davies

Dutch fans sing in English. Could our fans sing in any foreign language?

Books

In search of a lost God. Friedrich Nietzsche saw himself as an heir to the Enlightenment, a partisan of reason whose task was to cut philosophy free from its roots in religion. But his quest led ultimately to madness and unhappiness. John Gray on the life and work of a disturbed visionary

By John Gray

Friedrich Nietzsche Curtis Cate Hutchinson, 689pp, £25 ISBN 0091801621

Fuzzy edges. The brain shrinks, you are depressed, you feel like a vegetable: Anne Enright on the pleasures of pregnancy

By Anne Enright

Love Works Like This: travels through a pregnant year Lauren Slater Bloomsbury, 175pp, £9.99 ISBN 0747562172

Cock and Bull

By Roger Scruton

Beef and Liberty: beef, bull and English patriots Ben Rogers Chatto & Windus, 198pp, £17.99 ISBN 070116980X

Blood brothers. John Lloyd on fear and loathing among the loyalist gangs of Belfast

By John Lloyd

David Ervine: uncharted waters Henry Sinnerton Brandon Books, 255pp, £7.99 ISBN 086322301X The Billy Boy: the life and death of LVF leader Billy Wright Chris Anderson Mainstream, 207pp, £15.99 Milestones in Murder: defining moments in Ulster's terror war Hugh Jordan Mainstream, 236pp, £9.99