27 September 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 real Tony Blair

Nothing now counts for the PM except his own self-belief. To accuse critics of tackling the man, not the ball, misses the point. This man doesn't pass the ball

By Rory Bremner

Features

The double act that changed Britain

By Suzanne Moore

The Today programme has far too much shouting. Instead, watch Richard and Judy, who really do get answers out of people. Their show is where the power now lies in this country

Britain must own up to its WMD programme

By Heather Mills McCartney

Every half-hour, someone is killed or maimed by a landmine or unexploded ordnance. Yet a low-tech campaign means help is at hand - literally

Land campaign - Why we should follow Pittsburgh

By Christopher Huhne

Christopher Huhne explains how American cities have got rid of the blight of unused urban space and increased the supply of housing

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Essay

NS Essay - 'Without ideology, the role of politicians is no longer to persuade, merely to sell'

By Richard Reeves

NS Labour conference 2004 - Because it governs without a clear set of principles, new Labour's policy-making is incoherent and its reforms are slow. Above all, it lacks the vocabulary to shift popular opinion. Blair tries to capture the centre ground, not shift it

NS Essay - 'We can and should take action if the earnings of the rich set them apart from society'

By Anthony Giddens

NS Labour conference 2004 - Anthony Giddens argues that new Labour needs to embrace a new egalitarianism if it is to take further its commitment to social justice. Unlike the old notion of equality, it would reject totemic gestures such as raising income tax rates

Interview

NS Interview - Jack Straw

By Jack Straw

The man who tried to prevent the Iraq war now goes through contortions to justify it. This is the unhappy world inhabited by our Foreign Secretary. Jack Straw interviewed by John Kampfner

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Will the US now attack Tehran?

The Politics Column

Politics - John Kampfner on Blair's sixth war

By John Kampfner

Blair's announcement of a new war - his sixth in seven years - did not go down well with his guest, the Iraqi leader. Nor did it with one diplomat who described it as "grotesque"

Mark Thomas warns the toffs that polo is next

By Mark Thomas

To those who cry, "You just want to spoil the aristocracy's pleasure" - you are right. After fox-hunting, we're coming for polo, then Glyndebourne and maybe the Cresta Run

Amanda Platell feels sorry for a Labour lefty

By Amanda Platell

Greg Dyke's daughter is wrong about her dad: his tears on Channel 4 were pure TV gold

Darcus Howe pays tribute to Eminem

By Darcus Howe

Critics of gangsta rap, put in front of my optical, create more pain inside of my brain

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

Welcome to the cheap seats

By Tom Sutcliffe

Travelex, the foreign exchange company that yearns to become a household name, is giving a hundred people every week the chance to watch a performance at Covent Garden for a mere tenner. But will it do anything to improve opera's fat-cat image?

An irrepressible obsession

By Richard Cork

Contemporary art - He draws scatologically detailed fictional cities in painstaking pencil. Richard Cork is enthused by the wild world of Paul Noble

Quitting the day job

By Michael Coveney

A critic writes - It's not as easy as it looks. Michael Coveney on an attempt by a colleague to write a play

Theatre

Michael Portillo - Dirty business

By Michael Portillo

Theatre - A sleaze-filled expose of the muckraking media. By Michael Portillo Dumb Show Royal Court Theatre, London SW1

Film

Mark Kermode - The beautiful game

By Mark Kermode

Film - British romance v Chinese heroism and Gallic horror. By Mark Kermode Wimbledon (12A) Hero (12A) Switchblade Romance (18)

Television

Andrew Billen - Rebel with a cause

By Andrew Billen

Television - The testimony of a man whose values got him into trouble. By Andrew Billen Betrayed by New Labour (Channel 4)

The Fan

The fan - Hunter Davies thinks football is homoerotic

By Hunter Davies

I believe (deep breath) that football has become a homoerotic culture

Books

The right-wing revolution. Ordinary Americans are fighting the wrong class war. Their true enemies are not snobby liberals, but Republicans who claim to represent the nation's heartland while lining their own pockets. Why haven't the Democrats explained this to working-class voters?

By Robert Reich

The Right Nation: why America is different John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 464pp, £14.99 ISBN 0713997389 What's the Matter with America?: the resistible rise of the American right Thomas Frank Secker & Warburg, 306pp, £12 (pbk)