21 March 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
What Britain really thinks
What is going to matter most to people in the coming general election? Do they really loathe Tony Blair - or still quite like him? Could they ever vote for Michael Howard? Is asylum the big issue? Does anyone still care about the Iraq war? In this special investigation, John Kampfner, our political editor, goes on the road to hear the answers.
Features
The swingers who never were
Dominic Sandbrook argues that everybody has it wrong about the 1960s: far from being a decade of revolution and free love, it was one of caution, conservatism and convention
Men won't be seen with anything else
The discerning dad doesn't want just to push a buggy, he wants to drive it, reports Annalisa Barbieri
Britain's rich kids do better than ever
Astonishingly, class advantage has grown since the 1950s. Nick Cohen blames the series of "new waves" that have taken culture ever further away from working people
Regulars
Amanda Platell sees a glint in Blunkett's eye
That glint in David Blunkett's eye, and the cold shoulder from my co-presenter
John Pilger names the real killers in Columbia
The UK government finds it convenient to blame Colombia's huge murder rate on the drugs trade. The reality is that most of the killings are being done by a regime it supports
Darcus Howe explains Boateng's banishment
Boateng, like other black politicians, fell because he strayed too far from his roots
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Pen and ink revolutionary
"I am a rotten corrupt 'pig' nestled in the belly of the monster! I CONFESS! I CONFESS!" wrote Robert Crumb. His close friend Peter Poplaski explains how this radical cartoonist made it into the art establishment
Bizarre encounters
Visual art - Richard Cork is surprised by a show that transforms and elevates the everyday
Theatre
State of confusion
Theatre - Helen Chappell assesses a season of new plays examining just who the English really are
Theatre
Michael Portillo - Show trial
Theatre - An authentic play offers real insight into the IRA, writes Michael Portillo The Wrong Man Pleasance Theatre, London N7
Film
Mark Kermode - In reverse order
Film - Two marriages collapse before they've even begun. By Mark Kermode 5x2 (15) Don't Move (15)
Television
Andrew Billen - Hidden truth
Television - The dreaded dossier isn't the only thing lacking credibility. By Andrew Billen The Government Inspector (Channel 4
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies collects cheapo penny blacks
I buy cheapo penny black stamps; Wenger buys very thin, cheapo kids
Books
Slaves to industry. Victorian artists tended to depict workers in highly idealised terms - if they bothered with them at all. Richard Gott on the forgotten few who painted life as it was
Men at Work: art and labour in Victorian Britain Tim Barringer Yale University Press, 379pp, £40 ISBN 0300103808
Life of the party
Liberal Lion - Jo Grimond: a political life Peter Barberis I B Tauris, 266pp, £19.50 ISBN 1850436274
Atlantic cowboy
Lawless World: America and the making and breaking of global rules Philippe Sands Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 352pp, £12.99 ISBN 0713997923
Holy thoughts
Memory and Identity: personal reflections Pope John Paul II Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 198pp, £12.99 ISBN 029785075X
Chalk and cheese
The Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud and the search for hidden universes Richard Panek Fourth Estate, 258pp, £15.99 ISBN 1841152773
By the book
The Blue-Eyed Salaryman: from world traveller to lifer at Mitsubishi Niall Murtagh Profile Books, 216pp, £16.99 ISBN 1861977247
The book business
Nicholas Clee thinks the rise of book clubs has coarsened literary debate
Michele Roberts on the delights of Moroccan cuisine
Food - Camus knew how to clean chickpeas - one more reason to prefer him to Sartre
