05 April 2004

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

The new global elite

Forget illegal immigrants. A cosmopolitan class, young, mobile and restless, move from country to country as their grandparents might have moved from town to town. Do they end up as citizens of nowhere?

By John Prideaux

Features

Get on yer bikes!

By Gideon Burrows

Cheaper, healthier and safer than motoring, cycling should come out of the gutter

1 comment

Give Blair another chance

By Mark Lynas

Mark Lynas proposes that we should forgive the PM for Iraq if he can redeem himself by embracing a big new idea for tackling both climate change and global poverty

How to take Islam back to reason

By Ziauddin Sardar

Far from being anti-science, as George Carey suggests, the Koran demands scientific study. Now Muslim leaders are planning its revival and hope to restore a golden age, reports Ziauddin Sardar

3 comments

A brave new world of Pyrex dishes

By Helen Womack

Russia today is like Britain in the Fifties and Sixties: agog at new washing machines, throwing out the old - even hitting the hippie trail

Germany takes its medicine badly

By David Lawday

Tony Blair's problems are nothing to what Chancellor Schroder faces in Berlin. His party loathes him and his country is in a deep sulk, because he has brought home to the people that they are no longer the wealthiest in Europe

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Our amazing hypocrisy on immigration

The Politics Column

Politics - John Kampfner predicts a delayed general election

By John Kampfner

Tony Blair, insiders say, is considering delaying the election until autumn 2005 or even spring 2006 so that he can first push the EU constitution through parliament

John Pilger reveals Australia's role as Bush's sheriff

By John Pilger

Of the token hangers-on who make up the Anglo-American "coalition of the willing", only Australia remains true to the uber-sheriff in Washington

Darcus Howe watches the fall of a Bird

By Darcus Howe

How the West Indies cricket disaster toppled an old and oppressive dynasty

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

Goodbye to the blues

By Farah Jasmine Griffin

Billie Holiday is remembered as much for her tragic life as for her beautiful voice. But now, thanks to a new generation of female artists and musicians, a more positive Lady Day legacy is emerging

Crass but clever

By Matthew Collings

Art - Matthew Collings asks: isn't it time we fought back against the Saatchi spin?

Art house

By Richard Cork

Restoration - Richard Cork on a stately home's reincarnation as a diverse showcase for art

Theatre

Michael Portillo - Lights out

By Michael Portillo

Theatre - A power failure illuminates sad urban lives in Charlotte Jones's emotionally charged play, writes Michael Portillo The Dark Donmar Warehouse, London WC2

Film

Mark Kermode - Past crimes

By Mark Kermode

Film - True stories of a female serial killer and a US war leader told with empathy. By Mark Kermode Monster (18) The Fog of War: eleven lessons from the life of Robert S McNamara (PG)

Television