12 September 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

Why America can't cope

There are deeper explanations for the New Orleans catastrophe than anyone has dared suggest, writes Andrew Stephen. The roots lie in America's deluded self-image

By Andrew Stephen

Features

Gulf Coast blues

By Thomas Ruys Smith

Not a fanatic after all?

By Andrew Hussey

The Sun thinks he's dangerous and the US won't let him in, but he is welcome at Oxford and the Home Office wants him as an adviser. Andrew Hussey interviews the Muslim thinker Tariq Ramadan

A new map of Britain

By Mark Easton

With just a click or two, we can now tell how many immigrants live near us. Do we need this? Absolutely

The dangers of cuddly extremism

By Ed Owen

By their emotive rejection of all animal testing, the mainstream animal rights organisations are providing encouragement for the violent fringe, argues Ed Owen

The UN: scrap it or mend it?

By Dan Plesch

The United Nations is in deep trouble. Now an unprecedented summit in New York must decide what to do. Here, two distinguished writers offer suggestions. By Tariq Ali and Dan Plesch

1 comment

My life as a UN worker

By Lindsey Hilsum

1 comment

Why porn is the new glamour

By Kira Cochrane

The possibility of a career in the sex industry has been embraced by a generation of gullible young women, not just as a viable option but a genuinely attractive one

Trade Union Guide 2005

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Katrina blows away Bush's defences

The Politics Column

Politics - Nick Pearce trounces the flat tax

By Nick Pearce

Politicians and the media are in full song, arguing that a single rate of tax would boost economic growth and increase personal liberty. What rubbish

Mark Thomas becomes Richard Littlejohn

By Mark Thomas

We need a new law that makes "glorifying acts of privatisation" a criminal offence, and we need it now

Commons Confidential

Village life - Kevin Maguire sees who's on the PM's sofa

By Kevin Maguire

Democratic sofalism, a new Alastair Campbell, and Jim Devine's "sex shame"

Street life - Darcus Howe reviews the history of black America

By Darcus Howe

New Orleans is a city of murderous policing and corruption of the powerful

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

Coloured dirt

By Jeffrey Dennis

What is a picture? What is painting? More to the point, what is a painting worth if you lose it on a high-speed train? The artist Jeffrey Dennis examines the issues

True to his beliefs

By Helen Chappell

Encounters - David Edgar has homed in on British politics again. He tells Helen Chappell why he is still a revolutionary

Deacon blue

By Richard Cork

Contemporary art - By the crashing waves of Porthmeor Beach, Richard Deacon's work is ever more surprising and arresting

Theatre

Michael Portillo - Brotherly love

By Michael Portillo

Theatre - Squabbling siblings outwit the authorities in a modern farce, writes Michael Portillo Tom, Dick and Harry Duke of York's Theatre, London WC2

Film