02 October 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

Warming up: a new double act

With Blair bowing out in style and the search for a successor quickening, the Brown camp is glum. But an important new alliance could restore the Chancellor's confidence. Our political editor, Martin Bright, reports

By Martin Bright

Features

New Europe, old dangers

By Roger Boyes

Who is maddest - Hungary's foul-mouthed, lying prime minister or his nationalist enemies with their anti-Semitic pasts? Or any of the other bitter, anti-western, anti-globalisation parties on the march across the region? Roger Boyes reports

The heir to Bill Hicks

By Brian Logan

Doug Stanhope's comedy provokes riots. Brian Logan on the world's funniest and most brutal comedian

Interview

Cameron's John Wayne

By Sarah Sands

When Senator John McCain rides in to town to be star turn at the Tory conference, the party leader will be taking tips. Sarah Sands finds steel and charm in this Republican.

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

To silence his enemies, Gordon Brown should call an early election

The Politics Column

When the best strategy is to do nothing

By Iain Dale

If the price of the extra two million votes David Cameron needs is a few thousand "scorched earthers" on the right, it's a price he is only too happy to pay

Commons Confidential

Parties always hug a leader after stabbing him

By Kevin Maguire

Rural life: What is the CPRE actually protecting?

By Hester Lacey

Competitions: Vege-mate No 3948

Set by Valerie Yule You were asked to think of innovative ways to make use of pests - animal or vegetable

Culture

The beat goes on

By Mike Barnes

Steve Reich is the musical visionary whose repetitive, morphing sound gave birth to techno. But his legacy overshadows his new work

Forever punk

By Iain Aitch

Unlike the Sex Pistols, Crass never sold out - and their influence is still visible today

Theatre

Let's play master and servant

By Rosie Millard

Eve Ensler turns to dialogue to tackle torture and Iraq in a patchy two-hander The Treatment Culture Project, 45 Bleecker Street, New York City

Film

A disaster movie with nothing at its centre

By Ryan Gilbey

Stone's lack of nerve makes this 9/11 tale an inept ordeal World Trade Center (12A) dir: Oliver Stone

Television

An Eyre of intelligence

By Andrew Billen

The creative team rises to the challenge of Brontë's novel, with pleasing results Jane Eyre BBC1

Radio

The art of living dangerously

By Rachel Cooke

Saturday Live is about as risky as a padded playpen

Books

Victim of the media

By Simon Burrows

Observations on Marie-Antoinette

A very English affair

By Hywel Williams

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 Andrew Roberts Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 736pp, £25 ISBN 0297850768 From London to Canberra and Washington, DC, anglophone culture dominated the 20th century. Hywel Williams celebrates a provocative history of conquest and empire