03 May 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

Religion: Why do we still give a damn?

In one of the world's most secular societies, ministers tremble at an archbishop's words and give clergy a hand in forming policy. How odd

By Barbara Gunnell

Features

A traditional pleasure

By Kathryn Corrick

The workers take centre stage again

By Emily Mann

Anti-globalisation protests have declined, but May Day isn't finished. It's simply gone back to its original ideals

Nimbys are the true democratic heroes

By Paul Kingsnorth

"Not in my backyard": opponents of new roads or housing estates are taunted for their narrow self-interest. In fact, argues Paul Kingsnorth, they represent the rooted against the rootless

Essay

NS Essay - Military occupation is not the road to democracy

By Robert Cooper

Democracies are not made by written laws which can be exported as a package. They depend on unwritten rules and understandings: that civil servants don't take bribes and generals stay out of politics, for example

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Will he, won't he? Nudge, nudge . . .

The Politics Column

Politics - John Kampfner admires Jack Straw's game plan

By John Kampfner

There is a bull market in Jack Straw shares: the Foreign Secretary has become a political force. Will he be a good deputy when Gordon Brown is PM? Or even more?

Darcus Howe tells Big Ron where to go

By Darcus Howe

It was not a lapse: Atkinson was up to his neck in football's endemic racism

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

Bread and roses

By Amanda Hopkinson

A communist with a string of colourful lovers, Tina Modotti not only photographed the Mexican revolution, she lived it. Amanda Hopkinson on how her reputation has flourished in recent years

Alone in a crowd

By Richard Cork

Art - Richard Cork on a reclusive painter who lost himself in London life

Theatre

Michael Portillo - Lost for words

By Michael Portillo

Theatre - A lovesick poet who cannot fail to seduce audiences. By Michael Portillo Cyrano de Bergerac National Theatre, London SE1

Film

Mark Kermode - The unbearable lightness of being

By Mark Kermode

Film - A sci-fi fantasy that breaks your heart and scrambles your brain by Mark Kermode Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (15)

Television

Andrew Billen - If you can't stand the heat

By Andrew Billen

Television - Gordon Ramsay whips some rotten restaurants into shape by Andrew Billen Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (C4)

The Fan

The fan - Hunter Davies on football and race

By Hunter Davies

Strange and confusing, the double standards at play on race

Books

The view from inside. They looked for weapons of mass destruction, and all they found was lots of marmalade. But George Bush and his team didn't care: after 11 September 2001, they saw international terrorism not as a threat, but as an opportunity to attack Iraq

By Robin Cook

Disarming Iraq: the search for weapons of mass destruction Hans Blix Bloomsbury, 304pp, £16.99 ISBN 0747573549 The Price of Loyalty: George W Bush, the White House and the education of Paul O'Neill Ron Suskind Simon & Schuster, 348pp, £17.99 Against All Enemies: inside America's war on terror Richard A Clarke Simon & Schuster, 320pp, £18.99