07 April 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
The weird men behind George W Bush's war
Imagine a new British invasion of Egypt orchestrated by the followers of Ian Paisley, and you will have some idea of what is happening in Washington. Michael Lind dissects a neoconservative coup
Features
We killed Iraqis? It's so normal, why even discuss it?
We killed Iraqis? It's so normal, why even discuss it?
When is a civilian not a civilian?
Iraq's leaders say all the people will defend the homeland. So is anybody a fair target?
Tangled in the neoconservative web
Talk about the axis of evil is back with a vengeance, hopes for the Middle East road map are receding. So where is Blair's peace dividend? By John Kampfner, our political editor
Here is the news . . . for British Muslims
Here is the news . . . for British Muslims
The missiles that miss
Who is to blame when weapons rain down on shopping centres killing women and children? Paul Moorcraft peers through the fog of war for an answer
Among the sickly donkeys, another war brews
Among the sickly donkeys, another war brews
It's all about control, not the price of petrol
After the war, a new, US-dominated oil cartel will determine economic prospects in China and India
Strange bedfellows
How many of those who marched against the war realised that the protest organiser is an apologist for Stalin? And what would they have said if the Countryside March had been organised by neo-Nazis?
NS Special Report - 'For Somalis, their trust in British law is about - and this is their word - being ''civilised'', meaning treated with respect'
Somali immigrants in London have imported their own system of sharia justice. Alex McBride reports on the results and asks if we have something to learn
How to win a million pounds
Theodore Dalrymple explains the tricks hospitals will use to meet a new government target for emergency cases
The strange rebirth of a forgotten idea
Why is the country so short of money that we can't even rebuild the London Tube? Because we allow the banks a monopoly to create it, and they charge the earth
Blame China for the killer virus
The spread of a lethal disease shows the dangers of closed societies that cover up bad news
Regulars
Mark Thomas - the toothbrush terrorist
In Morpeth, police threatened the Public Order Act against 70 sixth-formers who wanted to hold a march. Did they fear Osama would use it as cover for an attack?
Cristina Odone is weary of the Vatican's sex obsession
Oh, no, not again! Can someone please keep my Church off the subject of sex?
Darcus Howe criticises a book on Stephen Lawrence
A look back on the Stephen Lawrence murder leaves a bad taste in the mouth
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Hard times
False, fragmented and unfair, Dickens's 19th-century London offers a grimly prophetic vision of the world today. Terry Eagleton on why Bleak House remains one of our most urgently contemporary novels
Eloquent visions
Photography - Ned Denny on achieving the transfiguration of painting from behind the lens
Giving it some stick
Advertising - Ross Diamond on a new star who is teaching the world's sporting heroes a trick or two
Writers in prison
Writers in prison
Film
Rotten to the core
Film - Philip Kerr finds plenty of bad-taste moments to enjoy in a preposterous disaster movie
Theatre
Leaving Las Vegas
Theatre - Sheridan Morley on a musical that hits all the right notes, a play that misses - and one for the mums
Television
The robot that went nowhere
Television - Andrew Billen on a profile of the England football coach that's up close and impersonal
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies calls for a penatly shoot-out
Will the Iraq war go into extra time and a penalty shoot-out?
Books
The forgotten inheritance. Why the mutual hatred between Islam and the west? Is it because neither can acknowledge that Islam gave Europe what it values most: liberal humanism? By Ziauddin Sardar
The Cross and the Crescent: Christianity and Islam from Muhammad to the Reformation Richard Fletcher Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 183pp, £14.99 ISBN 0713996862 Infidels: the conflict between Christendom and Islam (638-2002) Andrew Wheatcroft Viking, 443pp, £20
A place of greater safety. "In the whole of the 19th century, not a single person was refused entry to the United Kingdom." Robert Winder on the human urge to roam around the globe
The Global Community: migration and the making of the modern world W M Spellman Sutton Publishing, 247pp, £20 ISBN 0750922435 The Passport: the history of man's most travelled document Martin Lloyd Sutton Publishing, 288pp, £9.99
Coronation Street of the soul. Terence Hawkes on how our modern cult of celebrity blights the Shakespeare industry
Shakespeare's Face Stephanie Nolen Piatkus, 365pp, £18.99 ISBN 0749923911
Forever free
Made in Texas: George W Bush and the southern takeover of American politics Michael Lind Basic Books, 220pp, £18.50 ISBN 0465041213
Novel of the week
The Lucky Ones Rachel Cusk Fourth Estate, 228pp, £15.99 ISBN 1857029127
Germany's Titanic
Crabwalk Gunter Grass Faber and Faber, 248pp, £16.99 ISBN 0571216501
