21 February 2005

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

Condoleezza Rice

The US Secretary of State is the most powerful black woman since the Queen of Sheba, writes Bonnie Greer. To understand her, you first have to understand the striving class she came from - and why her own history may return to haunt her

By Bonnie Greer

Features

Tony, you're just like all the rest

By Deborah Mattinson

The Prime Minister wants to woo them back, but what do women voters really think of him? Deborah Mattinson has been listening - and what she hears could scupper Labour's re-election plans

The Republican's Royal Wedding Quiz

By Charles Nevin

Scotland waits for July riots

By Tom Wall

Tom Wall finds potential protesters already being harassed as police prepare for the G8 summit

The machines that ate my life

By James Burton

Forget super-casinos: worry about the brash "virtual roulette" in the high street

12 comments

Speak to us, Jennifer

By Laura Tennant

Cover-girl semiotics is big business and can make or break a magazine. But what are the stars' images saying - and to whom?

Where Bin Laden can still roam free

By Shiv Malik

Reporting from the tribal areas of Pakistan, Shiv Malik finds that opium is openly traded, gunshops flourish and al-Qaeda remains almost wholly unmolested

Essay

NS Essay - After two terms of Labour, the nation still largely thinks Tory

By Richard Reeves

Ministers say they want to bring about a "progressive consensus". Since even the US neo-cons claim to be in favour of progress, they will need to be more precise, argues Richard Reeves

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

We should move on, not Livingstone

John Pilger finds our children learning lies

By John Pilger

In our schools, children learn that the US fought the Vietnam war against a "communist threat" to "us". Is it any wonder that so many don't understand the truth about Iraq?

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

And the Oscar will not go to . . .

By Mark Kermode

One thing is certain about the Academy Awards: the most important films never win. Mark Kermode, the New Statesman film critic, explains why it's business as usual in Hollywood

It's all in the presentation

By Ian Garrick Mason

Hosts - The awards show has a new host and format to boost the ratings

Give pirates a break

By Boyd Farrow

Black market - The studios are crying theft, but their pleas of poverty don't add up. Boyd Farrow investigates

Matter of life and death

By Richard Cork

Visual art - Joseph Beuys packed his work with redemptive potential, finds Richard Cork

Theatre

A play of two halves

By Michael Portillo

Theatre - Wood and Walters prove one of the great comedy partnerships, writes Michael Portillo Acorn Antiques Theatre Royal Haymarket, London SW1

Television

Andrew Billen - Red-hot hero

By Andrew Billen

Television - A revamped children's classic is good enough for grown-ups, writes Andrew Billen Captain Scarlet (ITV)

The Fan

The fan - Hunter Davies groans when John Motson chuckles

By Hunter Davies

I've just had my holiday. After hearing Motty, I need another one

Books

How to be popular. A series of bluffers' guides reveals unexpected connections between the Marquis de Sade, Darwin and Hitler. Terry Eagleton on the pros and cons of a much-mocked format

By Terry Eagleton

How to Read Darwin Mark Ridley, Granta Books ISBN 1862077282 Freud by Josh Cohen l Hitler by Neil Gregor Nietzsche by Keith Ansell Pearson l Sade by John Phillips Wittgenstein by Ray Monk Granta Books, £6.99 each