02 February 2004
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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
The Hutton report - How a judge let Blair off
To Hutton, there was no case to answer: a grubby journalist had impugned the PM's integrity. But this naive report will make it harder than ever to find out why we really went to war in Iraq
Features
The Hutton report - This was the wrong inquiry
Why did the whole of the British state get the Iraqi arsenal so howlingly wrong? Like all previous judicial investigators of the executive, Hutton missed the point
The Hutton report - Fear and loathing at the BBC
If the nation's biggest broadcaster got most of the blame for the Kelly affair, it was an accident waiting to happen. David Cox exposes the roots of a catastrophe
Nobody has the right to be a mother
Amanda Platell explains why fertility treatment is not for her
How the English became obsessed with property
The sense of individualism and fear of revolution gave rise to the cult of the home. Only now do we see the loss in civic spirit and green spaces
Essay
NS Essay - When it comes to family, sex, food and booze, people hate being told what to do
Ministers should ignore the "nanny state" taunts. They may face opposition at first but, as drink-driving shows, they can make us more responsible
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
Blair's triumph will be a nine-day wonder
How Hutton provided the prime minister with an opportunity to exit
Mark Thomas - finds Indians who won't drink Coke
In India, pressures on the water supply created by a Coca-Cola plant have caused wells to dry up. Is it just a politically motivated thirst that has led local people to protest?
Darcus Howe - asks who killed 13 balck teenagers
After two decades, the question remains: who killed 13 young blacks in London?
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Icons of evil
We do not know why people commit terrible crimes. While contemporary artists have responded with a mix of irony and pornography, the media has sought to comfort us with a succession of banal morality tales. By John Gray
Sound and fury
Opera - Peter Conrad wonders if a new Tempest will conjure music to match Shakespeare's poetry
The world stage
Foreign playwrights - Aleks Sierz on why the British are so suspicious of international drama
Identity crisis
Art - Richard Cork on an artist who never overcame his childhood insecurities
Theatre
East side story
Theatre - Michael Portillo is seduced by an all-singing, all-dancing tale of forbidden Asian love
Film
Highs and lows
Film - Mark Kermode is unmoved by the lifeless Sylvia, but finds Mike Figgis's chiller a hoot
Television
Clinical oppression
Television - Andrew Billen finds there's no place for romance on a 12-step recovery programme
Books
The sum of his books. Edward Said denounced V S Naipaul as a "native informer", and even his warmest admirers have struggled to defend his recent inflammatory utterances. But surely no one can deny that he is one of the world's greatest writers, argues Geoffrey wheatcroft
Literary Occasions: essays by V S Naipaul Introduced and edited by Pankaj Mishra Picador, 204pp, £16.99 ISBN 0330420224
The good European
After the Empire: the breakdown of the American order Emmanuel Todd Columbia, 233pp, £21 ISBN 023113102X
Painting by numbers
Marks of Opulence: the why, when and where of western art 1000-1914 Colin Platt HarperCollins, 329pp, £30 ISBN 0002571005
Elusive reality
The Holy Grail: imagination and belief Richard Barber Allen Lane, 464pp, £25 ISBN 0713992069
The last laugh
Sunshine on Putty: the golden age of British comedy from Vic Reeves to The Office Ben Thompson Fourth Estate, 459pp, £15 ISBN 0007135831
Fiction - Writer's block
Oracle Night Paul Auster Faber & Faber, 244pp, £15.99 ISBN 0571216986
