06 November 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

Planet saved?: Why the green movement is taking to the streets

The government says it will tackle global warming with renewed vigour. But radical groups such as Plane Stupid tell Alice O'Keeffe that they want more than promises

By Alice O'Keeffe

Features

Is it too little, too late?

By Mark Lynas

Mark Lynas checks the maths and finds the targets seriously inadequate

Blood and money

By John Pilger

British state terrorism in Iraq has cost more than £7bn. The real cost of Trident may be £76bn. Now it is more urgent than ever to raise our voices against Blair's mutant liberalism

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Shrinking Britain

By Hester Lacey

Fancy a career change? Why not be a psychologist? It seems everyone else is . . . Psychology is now the fastest-growing major subject in the UK. So why do we all suddenly want to become shrinks? Hester Lacey reports

The fence of lies

By Mario Vargas Llosa

The rich are prepared to pay $50 an hour for someone to clean their houses. Agriculture would grind to a halt without Mexican and central American immigrants. So, ahead of the midterm congressional elections, Mario Vargas Llosa asks why the US needs to invest billions in a 700-mile-long barrier to stop illegal immigration

"I got Latinos to vote . . . but they voted religion"

By Stephen Armstrong

Stephen Armstrong talks to Eva Longoria

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

An economist and a telling indictment of the culture of greed

The Politics Column

A sofa and two crises of democracy

By Martin Bright

It is perhaps fitting that two parties on the fringes, geographically and ideologically, should have played such an important role in the humbling of Tony Blair

Commons Confidential

Style over substance

By Kevin Maguire

Money: Brown owes Barry a pension

By Liam Halligan

History is bunk No 3953

Set by Ian Birchall Historians now claim that Marie-Antoinette never said: "Let them eat cake." We asked for accounts of other misquotations, and an explanation of how they occurred

Culture

Revolution in the head

By Hunter Davies

John Lennon was never a political animal - so a new film claiming that he brought down governments and ended the Vietnam war comes as a surprise

The shock of the new

By Roger Wright

We love contemporary art and literature. So why does music have such an image problem?

Stealing beauty

By James Clasper

America's harsh copyright laws are ridiculed by an exhibition of illegal art

Theatre

Nobody puts Baby in a corner! (Wild applause)

By Rosie Millard

The hit 1980s film makes the transition to the stage, but misses a trick or two Dirty Dancing Aldwych Theatre, London WC2

Film

Thongs of freedom

By Ryan Gilbey

The Kazakh ace reporter uncovers uncomfortable truths about the US Borat: cultural learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan (15) dir: Larry Charles

Television

Putting the "fun" into funeral

By Andrew Billen

The queen may be dead, but long live the Royles in a fine piece of comedy The Royle Family: the Queen of Sheba BBC1

Radio

How jazz disappeared from the airwaves

By Rachel Cooke

The music schedules are a swamp of cheesy easy listening

Books

Life drawing

By John Mullan

City of Laughter: sex and satire in 18th-century London Vic Gatrell Atlantic Books, 696pp, £30 ISBN 1843543214 Our national obsession with political sleaze and celebrity misbehaviour is nothing new. John Mullan on the scurrilous ancestors of Scarfe, Steadman and Spitting Image