08 September 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
We sell arms to Saddam's friends
While Syria is accused of being a danger to the world, the Ministry of Defence invites its generals to London to buy weapons. What is going on? Gideon Burrows reports
Features
Why it's OK to be Bliar
Do voters really want politicians they can trust? The success of Harold Wilson, Richard "Tricky Dicky" Nixon, Jacques Chirac and others suggests not. By Kieron O'Hara
The Hutton Files, starring Michael Barrymore, Rachel Weisz and Victor Meldrew
Philip Kerr takes a dramatist's eye to the Royal Courts of Justice
Neoliberals frighten the horses
In its mania for more competition, new Labour now threatens the future of racing
Awkward? Us? Never!
If the unions are so angry with the government, why is their top man so placatory? Francis Beckett explains
In March this year, Red Nose Day raised £35m. That's less than one quarter of Philip Green's annual earnings
Nick Cohen on how meritocracy became a reality in new Labour's Britain
Essay
NS Essay - "Power failures reveal a deep truth: the earth's resources are irrevocably finite"
We like to believe that growth can go on for ever and that the western way of life can be replicated across the world. Electricity cuts and computer viruses are early warnings that we are wrong
Regulars
The Politics Column
Politics - John Kampfner on Downing Street after Campbell
Whitehall is bewildered: the row over the BBC became so all-consuming this summer that Downing Street wasn't interested in or able to do anything else. Can Blair start afresh?
Darcus Howe puts Martin Luther King in his place
The US black revolt began on the cotton plantations, not at the Lincoln Memorial
Mark Thomas - It creates jobs? So does burglary
They say arms sales generate jobs. So does burglary. But do ministers hand out awards for Most Innovative Use of a Crowbar?
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
I am a camera
Documentary films are making cinema news as never before. One of Britain's most controversial film-makers, Molly Dineen, discusses trust, the degradation of television and how she talked to Geri Halliwell on the lavatory
Harmonious discord
Opera - Peter Conrad welcomes Cecilia Bartoli's restoration of Mozart's greatest rival
Hello boys
Comics - David Thompson samples the latest Japanese invasion - gay manga
In the family way
Art - Richard Cork on the Boyles' lifetime project to "include everything", rubbish and all
Film
Roman tragedy
Film - Philip Kerr is driven to despair by an anodyne rip-off and its tween queen star
Television
Putting the boot in
Television - Andrew Billen on rival broadcasters' predictable eagerness to attack the BBC
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies marvels at a naked Bolas de Oro
Imagine Branson giving his trillions to a Russian hot-air balloon team. By Hunter Davis
Books
Back to Blighty. Martin Amis's latest novel marks a return to form and familiar territory. While it might seem we've been here before, his manic humour is a welcome change from the prevailing literary pietism, writes George Walden
Yellow Dog Martin Amis Jonathan Cape, 340pp, £16.99 ISBN 0224050613
The search for meaning. J G Ballard's vision of the world is unsurpassed in its clairvoyant exactitude. His latest despatch from the near future is as bleak and beautiful as ever, writes John Gray
Millennium People J G Ballard Flamingo, 294pp, £16.99 ISBN 000225848X
Misconceptions. Rachel Cusk discovers a great deal of sex but no real love in Jim Crace's novel about a man who gets every woman he sleeps with pregnant
Six Jim Crace Viking, 256pp, £16.99 ISBN 0670881163
Prophet of doom. Ideal for the MTV generation, Douglas Coupland's fiction is becoming increasingly dark, writes Jason Cowley
Hey Nostradamus! Flamingo, 244pp, £15.99 ISBN 0007162502
Battle scars. Long fascinated by war and its aftermath, Pat Barker turns to the present day and 9/11. Christina Lamb reports
Double Vision Pat Barker Hamish Hamilton, 307pp, £16.99 ISBN 0241141761
Angry young man. Although more interesting than most modern love stories, Tibor Fischer's novel isn't quite as good as it might have been. By Zoe Williams
Voyage to the End of the Room Tibor Fischer Chatto & Windus, 251pp, £10.99 ISBN 0701173335
