01 January 2005
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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
We punish the man, but protect a corrupt system
Who is guiltier, a minister who fast-tracked a visa or a Prime Minister who lied about the need to go to war? The Budd inquiry proves that real justice will continue to elude us under Blair. By John Kampfner
Features
A man of our time
Classical music - Jessica Duchen celebrates a composer whose ideals can be heard at the heart of his work
Regulars
Mark Thomas finds corruption sadly unregulated
UK arms firms will get advance warning of any SFO investigation for corruption. This is like the police telling crack dealers that the sniffer dog has a cold, so they'll pop round later
Darcus Howe hails Brixton people's self-confidence
After the Brixton riots of 1981, Caribbean migrants acquired a sense of belonging
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Art of endurance
Charles Saatchi has been busy ridding his gallery of messy beds, dead dads and sliced cows to make way for large, colourful canvases. So will painting triumph in 2005? Richard Cork is not so sure
No place like home
Writing a memoir - When Ekow Eshun visited Ghana in search of his roots, he was troubled by what he dug up
Theatre
Michael Portillo - Paradise lost
Theatre - A bookstore is the setting for novel characters but old themes. By Michael Portillo Fix Up National Theatre, London SE1
Film
Mark Kermode - Life in the fast lane
Film - Get sky-high on flashy visuals and martial arts theatrics. By Mark Kermode The Aviator (12A) House of Flying Daggers (15)
Television
Andrew Billen - Double trouble
Television - The cruelty behind a comedy duo is made painfully clear. By Andrew Billen Not Only But Always (Channel 4)
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies marvels at footballers' haircuts
For the first time in ages, non-fashionable hair has become fashionable
Books
Why the truth gets you nowhere. "The point of argument is not to be right, but to win": from a melancholic 19th-century philosopher, a true text for our times. George Walden on the rhetorical shamelessness that pervades public life
The Art of Always Being Right Arthur Schopenhauer; with an introduction by A C Grayling Gibson Square Books, 190pp, £9.99 ISBN 1903933617
The adventure of reason
Philosophy - Edward Skidelsky has his soul comforted by the ruminations of a Berlin discussion group
Beyond the fringe
The Last of the Celts Marcus Tanner Yale University Press, 398pp, £25 ISBN 0300104642
Text messaging
Subtitles: on the foreignness of film Edited by Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour MIT Press, 544pp, £22.95 ISBN 0262050781
The year ahead
Celebrity biography, Bush-bashing and cookery books are on their way out; 1980s blockbusters are going to make a comeback. Toby Mundy predicts what will and won't be hot in 2005
