03 October 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
Iraq: our fatal blunder
British forces in the south of Iraq have ceded power to Islamic radical militias. The police recruits they have armed and trained are now their enemies
Features
A presidency crumbles
He just can't get it right any more. With Iraq, Katrina and Rita, the Bush disconnect - the gulf between rhetoric and reality - has become ever more stark. And now his friends are beginning to jump ship, reports Andrew Stephen
Endgame
As Tories head for Blackpool and the leadership contest gets serious, two writers knock a few misconceptions on the head.
Beautiful game? Absolute pain
Football itself is annoying enough, but the lovable footie fan is far worse
No more people power
Fuelled by e-mails and western cash,Ukraine's orange revolution was a new kind of upheaval. Other ex-Soviet states don't want it happening again
Essay
NS Essay - 'Our faith in western liberal democracy, and our belief that it possesses a superior moral truth, have blinded us to countries with other traditions'
If you say that different cultures are entitled to their own views on right and wrong you will be howled down as a "relativist". But since when did the west have a monopoly on wisdom?
Interview
Interview - George McGovern
''People are getting the message'': three decades on, America's great loser detects the first signs of a liberal revival. George McGovern interviewed
Regulars
The Politics Column
The politics column - Martin Bright sees turmoil ahead
We have a government that still thinks it is in opposition and an opposition that thinks it deserves, by right, to be the government
John Pilger blames Basra on the British
Is there to be no honest accounting for the events in Basra? Do we simply accept John Reid's customary arrogance?
Commons Confidential
Village life - Kevin Maguire tells Tony's risque joke
Tonytown latest: T Blair tells risque joke, Pete tints hair, and Big Gordie does a "Roman"
Michela Wrong sees no end to sleaze
It doesn't take much historical insight to know that a corrupt Kenya will, in the end, be a failing Kenya
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Play that baby some Mozart!
The Barbican and Young Vic are devoting four months to the phenomenon of young genius. Mark Lythgoe explains why a scientific analysis of creative brilliance is so hard
Of human branding
Design - Brands, brands everywhere. But as Stephen Bayley points out, the only one worth having is the one you see in the mirror
The Fast lane
Video Art - Colonial Americans comment on modern-day life in Omer Fast's edited world. Rachel Withers is intrigued
Radio
Radio - Rachel Cooke
Sir Walter Raleigh, Milton's Rebel Angels and a Eurosceptic tank? Radio 4 must be dumbing up
Theatre
Michael Portillo - Cuckoo in the nest
Theatre - Joseph Fiennes leads a tale of adoption and frustration. By Michael Portillo Epitaph for George Dillon Comedy Theatre, London SW1
Film
John Lyttle - Kind of magic
Film - An anime wizard in fabulous drop earrings? How improving, writes Howl's Moving Castle (U) Howl's Moving Castle (U)
Television
Finite variety
Television - A sweeping Elizabethan tale manages three great scenes, writes Andrew Billen Elizabeth I (Channel 4)
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies enjoys Premiership misery
Now the Premiership clubs will have to be nice to all of us, all the time
Books
The great beyond. Today the idea of space travel has a dated feel, but it was once a heroic quest that epitomised man's struggle to transcend his limitations. Bryan Appleyard recalls the era of the space dreamers, when the moon seemed like the first step to the stars
Space Race: the untold story of two rivals and their struggle for the moon Deborah Cadbury Fourth Estate, 372pp, £20 ISBN 0007209959
Common cause. The Tory party needs to rethink its ludicrous stance on Europe, writes Douglas Hurd
Not Quite the Diplomat: home truths about world affairs Chris Patten Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 324pp, £20 ISBN 0713998555
Creative living
February House Sherill Tippins Scribner, 317pp, £14.99 ISBN 0743257243
The American scene
John Sutherland launches his new monthly column with a look under the kilt of a lethally seductive Highland warrior
Parallel lives
Edge of the Orison: in the traces of John Clare's "journey out of Essex" Iain Sinclair Hamish Hamilton, 400pp, £16.99 ISBN 0241142180
Fiction - Family fortunes
In the Fold Rachel Cusk Faber & Faber, 224pp, £10.99 ISBN 0571228135
Fiction - Roundabout
Mercedes-Benz Pawel Huelle; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones Serpent's Tail, 160pp, £8.99 ISBN 1852428694
