14 November 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
America's new enemy
Latin Americans have spent the past few years finding their voices. Now they may have the strength to defy their northern neighbour
Features
After the passion, the turn-off
Once, we couldn't get enough of our mobiles, but the love affair is coming to an end
'It says something about the nature of Cameron's coterie that it views the leadership campaign as a mock-heroic game where the future of the universe is at stake'
The Etonian pretender to the Tory throne is fiercely resisting attempts to nail down his beliefs. The only clear pattern that is emerging from the leadership contest is that the old class order is reasserting itself. A special report
Interview
NS Interview - Jack Straw
''Tony will go at a time of his own choosing and it won't be soon . . . He's got a great deal more to do''. Jack Straw interviewed
Regulars
Ziauddin Sardar explains the long history of violence behind Hizb ut-Tahrir
What Hizb ut-Tahrir peddles is escapist fascism that appeals to people who want to be told what to do
Michela Wrong asks why Blair backs a brutal regime
A regime hailed as progressive by Tony Blair has shot women and children in the streets and detained thousands
Commons Confidential
Village life - Kevin Maguire flies with Big Geordie to Israel, and back
Big Gordie makes two mistakes, Blair's man loses out, and the truth about feasting MPs
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
From Prussia with hate
Lynx and Lamb are Californian twin sisters hoping to become stars. But, as Carolyn O'Hara reveals, their pop-country ballads represent the latest strategy of America's white supremacists
The problem of popularity
Architecture - Giles Worsley on the complicated transition of Zaha Hadid from "unbuildable" architect to ubiquitous global presence
Mauled by John Huston
Encounters - Nicholas Wapshott meets Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, an overnight sensation at 69
Film
Shandy but not bitter
Film - What would a Sterne scholar make of a new version of an "unfilmable" novel? Lana Asfour attends the premiere
Radio
Radio - Rachel Cooke
Reduced rather than boiled down, R4's Couples was not Updike-lite, but Essence of Updike
Theatre
Julian Clary - Chattering classes
Theatre - George Bernard Shaw receives a witty, pretty make-over, writes Julian Clary You Never Can Tell Garrick Theatre, London WC2
Film
John Lyttle - Victorian virtues
Film - Black-and-white morality takes on an unexpected colour, writes John Lyttle The Constant Gardener (15)
Television
Andrew Billen - Ladies' night
Television - In an updated Shakespeare, the girls get all the best lines, writes Andrew Billen Much Ado About Nothing (BBC1)
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies keeps hold of his tickets
My unused ticket to last week's game could yet be part of my pension
Books
Sick to the core. We know that Pop Idol is commercially driven trash. But are most "quality" offerings, such as Lost in Translation, really any better? charlotte raven despairs at the emptiness of modern culture
Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? The encyclopedia of modern life Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur Time Warner Books, 277pp, £9.99 ISBN 0316729531
Out of gear. George Walden on a writer whose sympathies were too broad to be constrained by the cliquishness of English life
The Real Life of Anthony Burgess Andrew Biswell Picador, 434pp, £20 ISBN 0330481703
Curves in motion
Mae West: it ain't no sin Simon Louvish Faber & Faber, 512pp, £20 ISBN 0571219489
Persian gulfs
We Are Iran Nasrin Alavi Portobello Books, 336pp, £12.99 ISBN 1846270014
The American scene
the american scene A new consumer-driven literary prize is vulgar in the true meaning of the word
Fiction - Bloody trail
No Country for Old Men Cormac McCarthy Picador, 309pp, £16.99 ISBN 0330440101
Unending battle
The Utility of Force: the art of war in the modern world General Sir Rupert Smith Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 428pp, £25 ISBN 0713998369
