11 April 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
Blood of innocents on his hands
Pope John Paul II helped keep the continent of Africa disease-ridden, famished and disastrously underdeveloped, writes Michela Wrong from Nairobi
Features
How to give Blair a bloody nose
The NS guide to tactical voting
The anxiety election: this time it's tribal
Labour is going back to first principles, talking about investment in public services rather than "reforming" them. But can disgruntled supporters really trust Blair? By John Kampfner, political editor
My pledge card
Don't like Tony's six election pledges? What would you prefer?
A greyer shade of pale
Nobody would be surprised if one of the party leaders were to propose a traffic-cones hotline. In this campaign, it seems, everyone's about to become a John Majorite
Now they are ridiculous
The cult of monarchy is over, as the royal wedding fiasco shows. But Catholic cardinals should know that the same fate awaits them
A mad world, my Masters
MAs and MScs are the new career must-haves, and they're not too rigorous: you can even get one by studying Nicole Kidman, as long as you pay enough. Rachel Aspden reports
Mint tea with the terrorists
Under US law, it is an offence to give any "aid or counsel" to groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah. But some westerners say it's time to talk to even the most militant Islamists
Regulars
John Pilger rejects the Law of Silence
From the BBC's capitulation to the Israeli government, to the rush to eulogise a deeply reactionary Pope, pressure on the media is leading to insidious new state propaganda
Darcus Howe cheers a Windies cricket triumph
How West Indian cricket took on a bullying multinational and won
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Et tu, Tony?
Often seen as a champion of female-oriented theatre, Deborah Warner is trying her hand at Shakespeare's most brutal exposition of testosterone-fuelled violence. But will her Julius Caesar be too close for comfort, asks Rachel Halliburton, in a tantalising, pre-opening-night interview
A very English visionary
Visual art - Simon Wilson draws attention to the singular gifts of Jim Leon
People's picture
Cinema - It is 100 years since the events dramatised in Battleship Potemkin. Sebastian Harcombe sends a postcard from Odessa
Theatre
Michael Portillo - Unwelcome horde
Theatre - Inane voices, ludicrous faces in a banal rant about immigration. By Michael Portillo F*****g Asylum-Seekers Cochrane Theatre, London WC1
Film
Mark Kermode - Failed attempt
Film - A real-life loser should have stayed in the dustbin of history, writes Mark Kermode The Assassination of Richard Nixon (15)
Television
Andrew Billen - Inside story
Television - Seeing isn't always believing in a poetic view of pregnancy. By Andrew Billen Life Before Birth (Channel 4)
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies awaits his hospital visit from Becks
Join the Friends of Becks for a discount on Brylcreem
Books
The empire writes back. Should the literary realm be seen as its own republic, complete with frontiers, legislators and rivalries? Yes, according to a bold new theory. Terry Eagleton applauds a milestone in the history of modern thought
The World Republic of Letters Pascale Casanova Harvard University Press, 440pp, £22.95 ISBN 067401345X
Cut off from the past
Istanbul: memories of a city Orhan Pamuk; translated by Maureen Freely Faber & Faber, 348pp, £16.99 ISBN 0571218326
Performance art
Actresses and Whores: on stage and in society Kirsten Pullen Cambridge University Press, 215pp, £16.99 ISBN 0521541026
Pyrrhic defeat
After Blair: conservatism beyond Thatcher Kieron O'Hara Icon Books, 374pp, £12.99 ISBN 1840465948
The book business
Nicholas Clee on why the rise of the conglomerates may not be a bad thing
Fiction - Ghost-written
Here Is Where We Meet John Berger Bloomsbury, 237pp, £14.99 ISBN 0747573174
