23 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

Bush's Vietnam

Once more, we hear that America is being "sucked into a quagmire". The rapacious adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan are going badly wrong

By John Pilger

Features

Six years on and still suffering from a psychosis of opposition

By John Kampfner

In his speech to the Fabian Society, the Prime Minister not only emphasised the glaring gulf between his world and the media's world, but revealed that he lives in fear. At what point will he feel safe?

There's no defence for arms sales

By David Mepham

Government economists doubt the case for weapons exports. So why sell Hawks to India?

There's whiskey in the glass . . .

By Gavin Sheridan

The pub, the craic - drinking is part of the culture. But it's time Ireland counted the cost

Nanotechnology - Science's next frontier or just a load of bull?

By Philip Ball

This resin sculpture, crafted by laser beams, is the size of a red blood cell. But that's gigantic, in the controversial new world of the ultra-small. Philip Ball investigates

Rot at the core of the Apple

By Julia Magnet

Julia Magnet returns home to New York and finds that, under Mayor Bloomberg, the old diseases of rising crime, spreading graffiti and ubiquitous ghetto blasters have returned with a vengeance

Essay

NS Essay - Faith in political action is dead; it is technology that expresses the dream of a transformed world

By John Gray

The Matrix films echo the choice of the west's affluent majority, who prefer the virtual reality shown by the mass media to the true reality of suffering and evil

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Blunkett's criminal bill

Darcus Howe dismisses the Yardie threat

By Darcus Howe

Should rural villages dig themselves in against the Yardies? I think not

The alternative voice - Julian Fellowes compares Blair to Mussolini

By Julian Fellowes

Blair's abolition of the Lord Chancellor is just another example of how he is governing the wrong country. He does not like the things most British people like

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

The American century

By Toby Litt

Photography battles with its limitations. Political engagement turns viewers into aesthetes, while impassive images ultimately provoke deep emotions

In their own words

By Robert Potts

The British Library has compiled a collection of rare recordings of some great literary figures. Robert Potts delights in "hollow voices from the tomb"