16 June 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 banality of the good

Ignore the sceptics: the real Europe is foreign-language schools in Oxford and flights to Rome for £4.99. And it is deeply Americanised

By Timothy Garton Ash

Features

Brown's armlock is tighter than ever

By John Kampfner

Now there will be a review before an assessment before a referendum. Entry to the single currency still looks a long way off. By John Kampfner, our political editor

Why Serena was booed and heckled at the French Open

By Andrew Stephen

Even the suspicion of Gallic or German associations is now enough to get food, cars and drinks boycotted in America

The road to a cool Europa

By Mark Leonard

Mark Leonard, who proposed to rebrand Britain in 1997, offers his prescription for a sexier and more loveable European Union

How Stelios killed xenophobia

By Simon Calder

As recently as the 1970s, the Continent was a place of disease, oversexed men and dodgy lavatories. Simon Calder on how low fares turned Britons into Europeans

An ethical nation, full of bluster

By John Carlin

Spaniards love Europe because they hate each other. So will the country fall apart? John Carlin reports

A serving of fear with every dish

By Adam Sage

Even the French now fall ill from worrying about food, rather than from eating it

Much more than a straight banana

By Celia Brayfield

Dumb Britain, where debate is dominated by a wilfully idiotic press, just doesn't get it about Europe. Even French farmers know more

A search beneath the rubble

By Sam Jones

As Iraq showed, the Continental press prefers a few bits of truth to personal invective

Secrets, lies and yellow cake

By Thomas Powers

Whatever is now discovered in Iraq, it is unlikely to include 30,000 warheads and four chemical munitions bunkers - as US leaders claimed

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Roll up that map of the eurozone

Mark Thomas asks if the WMDs were in a flat-pack

By Mark Thomas

Maybe Saddam had his WMDs in a flat-pack. Maybe he had the instructions spread all over the palace floor, but just couldn't find those two dowelling pins

Cristina Odone worries about teenage sex

By Cristina Odone

We have debased sex: certificate 15 films sizzle with explicit scenes

Darcus Howe remembers his gang, the Law Breakers

By Darcus Howe

In London and the Caribbean, the gangs still thrive, as my Law Breakers once did

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

The altar of fire

By Tim Parks

In a world without faith or metaphysics, we need a grand illusion like the European Union. Even with all their prevarications and no-shows, the British cannot cheat us out of this latter-day castle in the sky, argues Tim Parks

Here comes the sun

By Andrew Hussey

Liverpool, once despised and feared throughout Britain, has been crowned the European Capital of Culture 2008. It may never be "the Barcelona of the north", but for Andrew Hussey, it is still the most spectacular city in the world