07 June 2004
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From the Editor…
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Cover story
D-Day for British politics
The electoral landscape is bleaker than ever before, with fringe parties of both left and right set to do well on 10 June. The war in Iraq did not create the public alienation from the main parties, but it has raised it to an entirely new level. By John Kampfner, our political editor
Features
Facts that should change the world
America spends $10bn each year on porn - more than it spends on going to see Hollywood movies and the same as on foreign aid
How new Labour buried the dustbin people
D-Day for British politics - Despite the claims of full employment, the grim reality is that more than two million are out of work, many of them on sickness benefit. Peter Dunn reports
Did they foul up my Third Way?
D-Day for British politics - The New Statesman wondered if Iraq and other recent reversals had shaken the faith of new Labour's founding ideologist. But as he reveals here, Anthony Giddens remains resolute and unrepentantly Blairite
Saddam's very own party
D-Day for British politics - Respect, the alliance between the Muslim Association of Britain and the Socialist Workers Party, shows how ugly the far left in Britain has become
Hello, Ken. Goodbye, Oxford Street
D-Day - Tubes and trains are overcrowded, suburbia is ignored, and commercial areas are in decline. Four years on, has Ken Livingstone really made London a better place to live in?
A good citizen is no longer good enough
D-Day for British politics - If you're too apathetic to vote on Thursday, don't worry. You can always join David Blunkett's new scheme to learn active citizenship. Karen Bartlett reports
Pleased to bow to Uncle Sam
D-Day for British politics - The UK Independence Party wants freedom from Europe only in order to turn us into US slaves, argues Neil Clark
Deaf to the world beyond them
Andrew Simms dissects the pitiful record of G8, a summit of the industrialised countries that specialises in making big promises on aid, the environment and debt and then failing to deliver
Regulars
Mark Thomas on why ID cards won't deter terrorists
A poll has found that 16 per cent of the population would engage in civil disobedience against ID cards and that 6 per cent - a million people - would go to prison
Paul Routledge on Harriet Harman's ego trip
MPs get a military lecture, Harriet has her picture taken, and Prescott's strange mood
Darcus Howe meets immigrants on holiday
The English tourists were split into tribes - until somebody mentioned immigrants
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Dear, dirty Dublin
16 June 1904 (Bloomsday) was the date of Leopold Bloom's adventures in Ulysses. Its centenary will be celebrated all over the world - and not least in James Joyce's home city. Brenda Maddox will be there
What a carve-up
Art - Richard Cork on why David Nash's organic sculptures are much more than dead wood
In tune with nature
Music - Peter Conrad celebrates Charles Ives, the man who first made America sing
Theatre
Spirit of inquiry
Theatre - Richard Norton-Taylor welcomes the Tricycle's latest real-life drama
Theatre
Michael Portillo - Adam and Evelyn
Theatre - Neil LaBute's sinister tale of a dork who turns into a hunk fails to seduce, writes Michael Portillo The Shape of Things New Ambassadors Theatre, London WC2
Film
Mark Kermode - Spellbound
Film - A return to Hogwarts finally gets a dose of magic; and an affecting, off-kilter drama. By Mark Kermode Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (PG) Japanese Story (15)
Television
Andrew Billen - Blood and guts
Television - Fine verite drama at the NHS obs and gynae ward from hell. By Andrew Billen Bodies (BBC3)
Books
England, their England. St George was a Turkish knight, our religion is Middle Eastern and Marks & Spencer was founded by a Russian Jew. Britain's national identity is founded on immigration. So why are many of us hostile to outsiders?
Bloody Foreigners: the story of immigration to Britain Robert Winder Little, Brown, 403pp, £20 ISBN 0316861359
The misery of plenty
The Paradox of Choice: why more is less Barry Schwartz HarperCollins, 265pp, £14.99 ISBN 0060005688
The good life
News from Somewhere: on settling Roger Scruton Continuum, 177pp, £16.99 ISBN 0826469302
Russian enigma
The Mystery of Olga Chekhova: was Hitler's favourite actress a Russian spy? Antony Beevor Viking, 300pp, £16.99 ISBN 0670915203
City of gods
A Death in Brazil Peter Robb Bloomsbury, 329pp, £16.99 ISBN 0747573158
A necessary evil
Edward Teller: the real Dr Strangelove Peter Goodchild Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 467pp, £25 ISBN 0297607340
Commentary
Black and Asian novelists have never been more commercially successful. But who is profiting? Not independent publishers, that's for sure, as Vastiana Belfon discovered when she set up Brown Skin Books, specialising in erotic fiction by black women
