05 May 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

The defeat of the left

On Iraq, Blair saw off his opponents, and deserved to do so. Nick Cohen accuses his enemies of hypocrisy and a failure to recall that socialism is the language of priorities

By Nick Cohen

Features

Tony Blair: now for the relaunch

By John Kampfner

If Iraq was his Falklands, the PM still awaits his Scargill. All pockets of resistance are to be crushed: will they include the Treasury? By John Kampfner, political editor

Treason: a good old British tradition

By Francis Beckett

Should George Galloway be put on trial as a traitor to his country? Should Anthony Blunt have been? Francis Beckett suggests that Elizabeth I had the right answers

Papa's girl sings a new kind of music

By David Lawday

David Lawday meets Marine Le Pen, daughter of Jean-Marie, and hears of her sympathy for France's immigrants and for the British Conservative Party

The revival of an elusive dream

By Neil Clark

Will the hawks bring about what the US has tried to stop for 50 years: Arab unity? Neil Clark reports from Egypt

A turning point for the welfare state

By Matthew Taylor

What about a proper inheritance tax? And state-provided assets for everybody to use when they wish? Matthew Taylor argues that Gordon Brown has started something big

The workers of Europe unite

By Robert Taylor

Blair, Schroder and Chirac may be at odds on Iraq, but all three want to keep unions down. Can John Monks, as the new continental union leader, fight back?

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Don't let Murdoch have his way

Cristina Odone sees blood on women's hands

By Cristina Odone

Can't men stand on their own feet, without women to help them make mistakes?

Darcus Howe hears Stab Up sing

By Darcus Howe

How Stab Up sang for the magistrate and was rewarded with mercy

Mark Thomas considers the new laws on arms sales

By Mark Thomas

As promised, Labour has legislated for greater controls on arms sales. But there are still plenty of loopholes and, to get round the new laws, you just need an office in Lille

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

The blue hour

By Lilian Pizzichini

As a play about her bleak life and work shows, the novelist Jean Rhys was ahead of her times. Lilian Pizzichini on a troubled exile who speaks to immigrants everywhere

The invisible man

By John Dugdale

Thomas Pynchon may be one of America's most reclusive writers, but his influence on popular culture is pervasive. John Dugdale on a new film about the enigmatic author