18 June 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
Features
It takes one to know one
Tony Blair denounces the media for manipulation - while still denying his own addiction to spinning.
Waiting for a change of owner
Skyrocketing fares, worsening services and government subsidies higher than ever - all prove that privatisation was a costly mistake. There has never been a better time to renationalise the railways
The scramble for Africa's oil
Within a decade, the US will be heavily dependent on African oil. Little wonder the Pentagon is preparing a strategy for the region.
Who is the real Hillary?
If you want to understand the woman who would be president, don't bother to read the latest avalanche of recycled biographies - just ask her interns.
Slaves to the office
Technology promised to bring an end to the daily grind, but it has only extended the office's reach to the commuter train and the home. Now that work is supposed to be "fulfilling", it is potentially endless.
Pay for it twice? It's not a Saudi arms deal
Gordon and little John set up a charity shop to raise money for Africa. But for Cherie, parting with her seal-fur handbag is too high a price to pay.
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
A man who appreciates the malaise and the need for change
Brown must understand the depth of anger over Iraq. For that reason, we are backing Jon Cruddas for the Labour deputy leadership
Commons Confidential
Do Fergie, Monty, Tanni and Dickie have a special secret?
Big Gordie's game of chicken with Druggie Dave over anti-terror laws divides the shadow cabinet
Perfect sense No 3982
Set by Dorcas You were asked for a piece of fiction in which the following words appeared and which made perfect sense: toothpick, polar bear, sporran, library, formalin, Marmite, groyne, hell, group captain, tympanum
Culture
Pretty vacant
Punk art exploded into the decay and collapse of the 1970s, bringing a message of racial and sexual empowerment. A new exhibition struggles to capture its raw spirit.
Building bridges
An art show organised by Kids Company explores the gulf between rich and poor. Sarah O'Connor meets the young participants
Cry freedom
Beethoven's Fidelio is a hymn to liberty, but it was adopted enthusiastically by Marxists and Nazis alike
Theatre
The end of the affair
Thirty years on, Pinter's study of adultery remains as poignant as ever Betrayal Donmar Warehouse, London WC2
Film
Enemy of the people
Despite a few stylistic slip-ups, this is a chilling tale of US imperialism The War on Democracy (18) dirs: John Pilger, Chris Martin
Television
Opportunity knocks once more
The performers may be amateurs, but their passion is genuinely moving Britain's Got Talent ITV1
Radio
The boy done good
Irreverent Marc Riley runs a music show that's the best in Britain Marc Riley's Brain Surgery BBC6 Music
Books
If words could kill me
Unless we stem the rising tide of radical Islamist rhetoric, a prelude to jihadism, in Britain the carnage of Baghdad may well erupt in Bradford and Birmingham.
Children of war
For years, the west saw Africa as a distant "hell" of coups, refugees and revolutions. But its writers tell a different - and more disturbing - story
Notes from a small island
Daniel Trilling discovers a thriving literary scene between the mountains and the Caribbean
The people's party?
Comrades: A World History of Communism Robert Service Macmillan, 624pp, £25
Intellectual kleptomania
The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy Andrew Keen Nicholas Brealey, 240pp, £12.99
The new nuclear zone
The Atomic Bazaar: the Rise of the Nuclear Poor William Langewiesche Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 192pp, £20
Supersize me, Misha
Absurdistan Gary Shteyngart Granta Books, 352pp, £10.99
Imagined community
The Yiddish Policemen's Union Michael Chabon Fourth Estate, 432pp, £17.99 ISBN 0007150393
Observations
A stan in the middle
With both US and Russian bases, Kyrgyzstan is caught in the middle of a battle for military dominance.
