27 October 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
Scrap privatisation now
We are spending more public money to get worse public services. The Tube derailments are a perfect case study of how this strange result is achieved. By Nick Cohen
Features
How Straw defied the US hawks
The Foreign Secretary has staked his reputation on taming the Iranian mullahs. Anton La Guardia reports
Thoroughly bad behaviour
The middle-class woman (or MCW) is accused of being a selfish, antisocial exploiter of poor migrant labour. And much else. Barbara Gunnell asks if she deserves so much abuse
The Indobrit moment
We came, we stayed, we conquered. Farah Damji on the many talents of her optimistic, high-achieving generation who are to be found at the heart, and head, of some very British institutions
Twelve ways to reach the top
How Asians scaled the heights of everything from comedy to the Fabian Society by Alice O'Keeffe
The great education disaster
Katharine Hibbert, fresh from university, was astonished by the squalid conditions and poor teaching at a college where she went to learn a vocational skill
Don't mention the race factor
At the polls, most black South Africans will vote again for the ANC. But is this a vote in their own interests or just a statement of identity? Bryan Rostron reports from Cape Town
Ready to leave the old time
North Korea wants to follow China's path. But will George W Bush let it do so? Glyn Ford reports
Essay
NS Essay - "We are witnessing the death of the political personality"
The great problem of our age is not too much presentation - Churchill did soundbites - but the loss of the conviction politician with energy and power"
Regulars
The Politics Column
Politics - John Kampfner explains why Blair just won't let up
Blair can change certain working practices - he did so even before his medical drama - but he dare not slow down. If he did, the whole government would grind to a halt
Darcus Howe praises undercover reporting
Only undercover reporting could reveal the truth about racism in the police
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
The bigger picture
Jeremiads proclaiming the death of cinema are commonplace these days. In fact, writes Sukhdev Sandhu, this is a golden age for films - but they tend not to be in English
Out of the dark ages
Art - Richard Davenport-Hines on an exhibition that sheds light on a neglected period of British history
Indian summer
Opera - Peter Conrad enjoys Baz Luhrmann's attempts to spice up Shakespeare's comedy
Off the wagon
Music - Helen Brown tunes in to the alternative voices of American protest
Film
In a league of its own
Film - Philip Kerr on the most expensive bad movie he's ever seen - and his pal who wrote it
Television
Sticky business
Television - Andrew Billen finds little that is uplifting in the musical musings of porn stars
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies is bored by rugby
Rugby, despite the hype, is less likely than ever to catch up with football
Books
The second coming. Ireland still lives in the shadow of W B Yeats. At times, the shadow darkens and changes its shape, but it is never absent, because his search for freedom and soaring autonomy makes him our contemporary. By Colm ToibIn
W B Yeats: a life (volume II: the arch-poet) R F Foster Oxford University Press, 798pp, £30 ISBN 0198184654
On the edge of a volcano
The Prudence of Mr Gordon Brown William Keegan John Wiley & Sons, 356pp, £18.99 ISBN 0470846976
Inside the bubble
The Roaring Nineties: seeds of destruction Joseph Stiglitz Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 389pp, £18.99 ISBN 0713997222
Venus envy
The Boy Germaine Greer Thames & Hudson, 256pp, £29.95 ISBN 050023809X
He made Athos his own
Robert Byron: a biography James Knox John Murray, 496pp, £25 ISBN 0719548411
The fisher king
Adventures of a Suburban Boy John Boorman Faber & Faber, 314pp, £20 ISBN 0571216951
Fiction - Soul trip
Set This House in Order Matt Ruff Flamingo, 479pp, £12 ISBN 0007164238
