19 June 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

Can America go green?

Why are Americans so sceptical about global warming? Possibly because they really don't want to do anything about it, argues Elizabeth Kolbert

By Elizabeth Kolbert

Features

Where were you?

Five things you might have missed last week

The war on children

By John Pilger

The most vulnerable people in Gaza are suffering the worst acute mental and physical trauma as a result of Israel's actions: almost half the population is under 15

2 comments

Sometimes it's hard to be a man

By Zoe Williams

On the surface, any connection between the World Cup and men's mental health week is just a quirk of the diary. Or maybe not?

2 comments

My socialist dream

By Robert Taylor

Time was when Tony Blair espoused radical causes. Robert Taylor reveals the romanticism in a hidden letter from the young politician to the Labour leader Michael Foot

Where idealism and pragmatism meet

By Neal Lawson

Time was when Tony Blair espoused radical causes. Neal Lawson says utopianism is alive and well

Interview

NS Interview - Chomsky

By Andrew Stephen

The New York Times calls him "arguably the most important intellectual alive", yet he has needed police guards on his own campus. Andrew Stephen discusses Iraq, Iran and Blair with a man who divides opinion like no other

2 comments

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Leader - Time for a living wage

The government has not intervened to help low-paid workers because it is on these very people that our economic growth depends

The Politics Column

Chaos over the biggest issue of our time

By Martin Bright

Nobody knows which Whitehall department is in charge of engaging with Britain's Muslims and tackling extremism. After Forest Gate, the problem could lead to disaster

Commons Confidential

The martyr who would have been secret

By Kevin Maguire

Unsuitable anagrams No 3933

Set by Will Bellenger: We asked for inappropriate reworkings of the monikers of the famous

Culture

Democracy by design

By Miranda Sawyer

Factory Records had an aesthetic that captured a revolutionary spirit: it stood for both high art and a good time. That idea has blossomed in contemporary Britain

A man of the people

By Richard Brooks

Ken Loach will not be deterred by the hostile response to his latest film, he tells Richard Brooks

How the personal became political

By Paul Laverty

Paul Laverty, Ken Loach’s screenwriter, explains the genesis of their film

Theatre

When Britain was true blue

By Rosie Millard

A loving paean to the Eighties comes complete with snow-washed denim. By Rosie Millard Market Boy
Olivier Theatre, London SE1

Film

All smoke and no fire

By Ryan Gilbey

A satire about the tobacco industry proves a damp squib, writes Ryan Gilbey Thank You for Smoking (15)
dir: Jason Reitman

Television

There's no business like show business

By Andrew Billen

A Pop Idol for playwrights is short on ideas, long on naked ambition, writes Andrew Billen The Play's the Thing
Channel 4

Radio

The Beatles? We've bigger fish to fry

By Rachel Cooke

Andy Kershaw harks back to the strange world of student gigs

Books

An orgy of inhumanity

By Joanna Bourke

The War of the World: history's age of hatred Niall Ferguson Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 746pp, £25 ISBN 0713997087 Why was the 20th century marked by so many massacres, wars and genocides? And will the next 100 years be any different? Joanna Bourke explores our capacity for hatred