23 January 2006

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 British men are rapists

In the world of stag-night excess, lad mags and lap dancing, paying for sex is losing its stigma and more and more men do it. These "clients" are responsible for a grotesque crime, yet they get away scot-free

By Joan Smith

Features

Rendition: the cover-up

By Martin Bright

Exclusive: A secret memo reveals the truth: the government knows rendition is illegal but it has no idea what it has been letting the CIA get away with on our soil

2 comments

We didn't invent fish and chips

By Patrick West

Gourmets say "traditional" dishes are being bastardised, but they are missing the point

What did the squatters do for us?

By Nick Cohen

Their primal-screaming, Trotskyist, free-love solution to a 1970s housing problem has a message for the modern era of soaring property prices

A wrong turning in space

By Robin McKie

Twenty years on from Challenger, the whole space shuttle project remains a disaster

Essay

NS Essay - 'David Cameron's style makes attempts to play up his background look mean-spirited. But his passage through his first month as leader speaks volumes about the confident chutzpah that tends to cost parents around £25,000 a year'

By John Harris

Like Blair in the 1990s, the Tory leader is being all things to all men, writes John Harris. For all its woolly elusiveness, the Cameron project is showing weaknesses, though it won't be easy to exploit them

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

We need policies not scapegoats

Michela Wrong agrees with Wolfowitz

By Michela Wrong

People like me are actually urging the World Bank to get even tougher on Chad. We're not sadists, so how come?

John Pilger - can't mourn Kerry Packer

By John Pilger

Behind the glamour of Australian sport, black footballers, including whole teams, are often dead before 40

Ziauddin Sardar wants to remember the Holocaust

By Ziauddin Sardar

When Muslims take part in Holocaust Memorial Day events, they are following the example of the Prophet

Commons Confidential

Kevin Maguire - Village life

By Kevin Maguire

High rollers return to the Tories, the Sun King cools off, and why Mrs Ming should be afraid

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

Why George is gorgeous

By Martin Rowson

For 300 years, cartoonists have immortalised politicians' every quirk, stupidity and physical defect. In return they have been persecuted and even assassinated. But beneath the hatred lies a tawdry, twisted love affair

High riser

By Jay Merrick

Architecture - Jay Merrick on the young talent making waves with his "baroque modernist" creations

Theatre

All the rage

By Robert Hewison

Theatre - Robert Hewison looks back in admiration on the cultural revolution of 1956

Radio

The radio column - Rachel Cooke

By Rachel Cooke

Sometimes an ad for a Saga holiday, or even a docile peal of pan pipes, is definitely welcome

Theatre

Michael Portillo - Larger than life

By Michael Portillo

Theatre - Even in death, Captain Bob brags, bullies and beguiles, writes Michael Portillo Lies Have Been Told Trafalgar Studios, London SW1

Film

Victoria Segal - Father figures

By Victoria Segal

Film - Cinema's lovable dad becomes a creepy sugar daddy, writes Victoria Segal Shopgirl (15)

Television

Andrew Billen - Fantasy island

By Andrew Billen

Television - A parable of modern Britain lapses into self-indulgence, writes Andrew Billen Friends and Crocodiles (BBC2)

Books

We've never had it so good. It has become fashionable to do down the present - whether because of television, consumerism or political correctness. But did things really used to be so much better? A C Grayling stands up for modern life

By A C Grayling

Plato's Children: the state we are in Anthony O'Hear Gibson Square Books, 239pp, £14.99 ISBN 1903933463 The Retreat of Reason: political correctness and the corruption of public debate in modern Britain Anthony Browne Civitas, 94pp, £9.50