18 August 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
How fat became a political issue
Obesity will soon be the biggest problem facing the National Health Service, costing us all billions of pounds a year. Shouldn't the government take action, asks Richard Reeves
Features
From rags to rags (and riches to riches)
Labour came to power with a mission to improve social mobility. But the chances of a bright child from a poor family becoming a high-flyer have worsened
The hidden people
Illegal immigrants in Norfolk take on the jobs no one else will do. One of them tells his story to Alex Stephens
Divide and teach
Amid the clamour over A-levels, Labour is quietly carving up education into a two-tier system. By Francis Beckett
Regulars
The Politics Column
Politics - Anne Perkins on the dark arts of news management
The dark arts of news management have been practised for years and by all parties. Yet Alastair Campbell and a paranoid Labour administration have taken them to new heights
John Pilger investigates US plans for mini-nukes
With the United States spoiling for further fights across the globe and prepared to consider the deployment of "mini-nukes", there is no doubt which is the greatest rogue state of all
Darcus Howe on police getting away with racism
So now our police officers are to be forgiven for not understanding inner-city culture
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Demolition
Heritage I - Is restoration necessarily a good thing? A new BBC series asks us to vote on which historic building should be preserved. But what would we most like to see destroyed?
National treasure
Heritage II - Richard Cork discovers the Queen Mother was a daring patron of contemporary art
No frills
Heritage III - Caroline Murphy follows the chintz trail from India to a Victorian house in Doncaster
A conflict of views
Photography - Jenny Matthews on the inevitable censorship and bias in documenting war
Television
Sale of the century
Television - Andrew Billen detects dodgy arithmetic in a series of documentaries about auctions
Books
Grandmother's footsteps. Sex and the City, Bridget Jones and ever new ways of dating - young women are still obsessed with finding a man at all costs. Decca Aitkenhead on why nobody wants to be a thirtysomething singleton today
Modern Love: an intimate history of men and women in twentieth-century Britain Marcus Collins Atlantic Books, 294pp, £19.99 ISBN 1903809215
Made for love
Courtesans Katie Hickman HarperCollins, 363pp, £20 ISBN 0007113919
War without end
Society Must Be Defended Michel Foucault Translated by David Macey Penguin, 336pp, £16.99 ISBN 0713997079
The big picture
The Americas: the history of a hemisphere Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 235pp, £12.99 ISBN 1842127136
Grand designs
A Thing in Disguise: the visionary life of Joseph Paxton Kate Colquhoun Fourth Estate, 307pp, £18.99 ISBN 0007143532
Gangster chic
Truecrime Jake Arnott Sceptre, 338pp, £10.99 ISBN 0340832428
Novel of the week
Mr Golightly's Holiday Salley Vickers Fourth Estate, 345pp, £16.99 ISBN 0007156472
