05 March 2007
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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
The great generational robbery
Expensive pensions, no hope of getting on the housing ladder, and tens of thousands of pounds of debt just to go to university. Have the under-35s been mugged by the baby-boom generation that went before them?
Features
This way madness lies . . .
Some former Labour ministers are so rattled by Gordon Brown's poor performance in the polls that they are considering a suicidal strategy: let him have the premiership - but only on probation
Interview - Sir Ian Blair
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair on terror threats, cash-for-honours, and why he expects to be cleared over the de Menezes shooting
Australia: the new 51st state
John Howard's servility to the US is even greater than Tony Blair's and has earned him the nickname Bush's deputy sheriff. The conspiracy between Washington, the media and politicians is eroding the country's freedoms
London Special - Congestion
The capital has led the way on road pricing with the congestion charge and, despite the doomsayers, the scheme is acknowledged as a great success. Christian Wolmar calls on national government to show similar courage and leadership.
London Special - Ken's friends
Few doubt that the Mayor of London has been successful in promoting the capital as a major global financial centre. But should he focus on issues closer to home?
Confessions of a kipper
Lucy Knight wonders if her generation's plight might, at least partly, be its own fault
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
Freedom of information was hard-won: it must not be diluted now
Can we really not afford to make this investment in open government? We have, after all, just spent billions on Iraq
Three's a crowd
Set by Ian Birchall Prince William's girlfriend is being hailed as "The Next Princess Diana". We asked for a brief biography as written by an author (Andrew Morton?) or tabloid of your choice
Culture
Brief encounters
Visitors from across the emerging empire came to this country in the 18th century. Exotic representations of them helped confirm British identity and power
Food for thought
Richard Linklater defined the slacker generation of the 1990s, but his latest film is a tough exposé of the junk-food industry. He tells Ryan Gilbey why he got political
Theatre
A shadow of his former self
This story of a once great journalist is heartbreaking, yet somehow dull The Reporter Cottesloe Theatre, London SE1
Film
More sinful than saintly
Stylish visuals aren't enough to save this grimy memoir A Guide to Recognising Your Saints (15) dir: Dito Montiel
Television
They've never had it so good
Maxine Peake brings an unexpected sweetness to John Prescott's adultery Confessions of a Diary Secretary ITV1
Radio
Podgy, breathless and ready for a heart attack
Roger Black's show about children's fitness is shaming
Books
My lamented sister
Etgar Keret is Israel's most admired short-story writer as well as a columnist for Nextbook.org. But his first taste of celebrity, as he describes here, came when he lost his beautiful, funny older sibling to Orthodoxy
A new America
The Pesthouse Jim Crace Picador, 320pp, £16.99 ISBN 0330445626
In an unreal world
Nada Carmen Laforet Harvill Secker, 256pp, £16.99 ISBN 1843433028
Take your pick
The Top Ten: writers pick their favourite books Edited by J Peder Zane W W Norton, 352pp, £9.99 ISBN 0393328406
Sleazing along
How the future chancellor, Gordon Brown, once defended public enterprises from privatisation
