18 October 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
America's next target
By keeping the rest of the world guessing about its nuclear capacity, Tehran has raised talk of war to dangerous levels in Washington and Tel Aviv
Features
No longer fooled by the west
When Britain failed to help liberal Iranians depose their autocratic regime, it lost crucial allies
Let's not panic about pensions
There is no "longevity crisis", only decisions to be made about how we pay for retirement
Hopi candles for the worried well
The NHS plan for taxpayers to fund hocus-pocus marks a historic betrayal of science
Let the courtship begin
Britain's politicians had better start listening to ethnic minorities: they need their votes
Writers at war
The literary world loves a feud, but a fierce row is threatening English PEN's very existence. The casualties may be imprisoned authors around the world
Why does Tony fear the G-word?
The people of Darfur have been murdered, raped, forced to leave their land and abandon their livelihoods. Yet the British government says that claims of genocide are exaggerated
Getting better all the time
The New Statesman and Fellows' Associates, with the support of Northgate Information Solutions, have organised six regional round-table discussions on community justice. At the first meeting in Cardiff, participants from a range of sectors focused on well-being in Wales
Regulars
Politics
Politics - John Kampfner on the man who would be Gladstone
The man who would be Gladstone is unfurling all kinds of visionary reforms. The problem is that, for the electorate, the question of Iraq simply won't fade away
Diary
Diary - Sue Townsend
We booked a villa in Majorca for three weeks. Then the German owner rang to tell my husband that we'd have to share the house. "Doesn't she know we're English?!" I shrieked
John Pilger cheers the islanders fighting dirty tricks
More than 30 years ago, the British expelled the inhabitants of Diego Garcia so the US could establish a military base. Now the government's dirty tricks are being challenged in court
Darcus Howe exonerates the countryside of racism
Trevor Phillips knows as well as I do that rural racism is not the problem here
Amanda Platell witnesses Peter Hain being booed
On Any Questions, the studio audience booed and jeered when Peter Hain defended the war
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Arts & Culture
Return of the Native
With low-budget, politically searching British pictures, foreign-language movies and restored classics from the archives, it could only be the London Film Festival. Louise Jury gives a sneak preview of cinema's most determinedly uncommercial love-in
Conran the barbarian
Design - The Design Museum has been riven by dissent from none other than its founder. Leave your baby alone, Terence, urges Grant Gibson
Ebony and ivory
Opera - Michael Coveney on an opera that takes the notion of the humble piano tuner into fresh territory
Southern comfort
Pop music - Grease with a country twist? Alex Gibbons is charmed by the Beautiful South's latest album
Theatre
Michael Portillo - Graphic tale
Theatre - Lloyd Webber's latest takes technology to new heights. By Michael Portillo
The Woman in White
Palace Theatre, London W1
Film
Mark Kermode - Troubled waters
Film - One fishy flick is a flop, another may upset some stomachs. By Mark Kermode
Shark Tale (U)
Oldboy (18)
Television
Andrew Billen - Rough trade
Television - A disturbing drama about women in slavery. By Andrew Billen
Sex Traffic (Channel 4)
Drink
Wine - Roger Scruton on the aroma of apricots and armpits
Women find especially alluring the full aroma of apricots and armpits
The Fan
The Eddie Stobart fan - Hunter Davies seeks sponsors for his football column
Hunter Davies writes his first ever sponsored football column - and looks forward to many more deals
Books
A man of the century. Martin Amis wrote about him with devotion; to Gore Vidal, he was the best critic of "the living novel". Geoffrey Wheatcroft on one of literature's finest all-rounders
V S Pritchett: a working life
Jeremy Treglown Chatto & Windus, 308pp, £25
ISBN 070117322X
Lenin's wonderful Georgian
Stalin: a biography
Robert Service Macmillan, 715pp, £25
ISBN 0333726278
Under the skin
The Good Body
Eve Ensler Heinemann, 224pp, £10.99
ISBN 0434013161
Sweet thing
The Hive: the story of the honey bee and us
Bee Wilson John Murray, 308pp, £14.99
ISBN 0719564093
Behind the times
Gordon Brown
Tom Bower HarperCollins, 492pp, £20
ISBN 000717540X
Off Whitehall
Derek Scott I B Tauris, 272pp, £18.95
Heaven can wait
Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way
Karol Wojtyla Jonathan Cape, 230pp, £10.99
ISBN
Fiction - Funny business
Seventy-Two Virgins
Boris Johnson HarperCollins, 336pp, £17.99
ISBN 0007195907
