10 December 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
How New Labour turned toxic
For fear of letting in the Tories, party loyalists and trade unionists have stayed silent. But the need to speak up for core Labour values has never been so urgent, argue Jon Cruddas and Jon Trickett. Plus our unrivalled political insights in the Inside Track
Features
Mothers betrayed
Every year half a million women die in childbirth, deaths easily prevented. Here Sarah Brown, wife of the UK premier, makes an urgent plea to the world's rich countries
How Catholic-bashing became respectable
It is worth asking in passing whether Jews could now be depicted with the same idiom as is now being deployed against Catholics
Dreams postponed
Desmond Tutu says South Africa has lost its moral direction, and the bitter contest for the ANC leadership offers no hope for new direction or ideas
Black cloud over the Balkans
The status of Kosovo was supposed to be the last obstacle to solving the problems of the Balkans. Failure would affect the entire region.
Iraq: no end to the suffering
News of improvements in Iraq's security situation is sadly exaggerated, writes Zaki Chehab
Regulars
The Politics Column
Breaking point
As the donation saga rumbles on, frustrated MPs tell our political editor, Martin Bright, that they are still waiting for Gordon Brown to show his true Labour colours
Party stoppers No 4007
Set by Leonora Casement We asked for overheard dialogue at a horrid party - the sort that would make you wish you hadn't come
Culture
The outside man
His stock is fast rising, but Anthony Neilson chafes at the embrace of the mainstream. British theatre should be more punky in spirit
All that glitters
The O2's exhibition of artefacts from ancient Egypt has been dismissed as "tacky" and "rapacious". The critics are wrong
Iron maiden
Where others gloss over the horrors of celebrity culture, Britney Spears lets it all hang out
Film
A mature take on youth
Coppola's latest effort is overblown, but cinema is better off for his presence Youth Without Youth (15) dir: Francis Ford Coppola
Television
Lavish in all the right ways
A return to the glory days of costume drama, courtesy of Elizabeth Gaskell Cranford BBC1
Radio
Sounds eclectic
Once again, radio fills the gaps left by TV's increasingly narrow agenda The Castle: a Portrait in Sound Radio 4 Russia's Lone Rangers Radio 4 The Best DJ You've Never Heard in Your Life Radio 4
Books
One foot in the past
Certain places just resonate with history, discovers Nicolette Jones as she traces the steps of Samuel Plimsoll
Accidental hero
For 150 years, John Stuart Mill has been the intellectual icon of the British left - but his ideas address few of the problems we face today.
Secrets of the state
The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia Orlando Figes Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 740pp, £25
Show trials and errors
The Guantanamo Files: the Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison Andy Worthington Pluto Press, 352pp, £16.99
Making a new home
From There to Here: 16 True Tales of Immigration to Britain Edited by Arts Council Penguin, 256pp, £8.99
Character sketches
The Book of Other People Edited by Zadie Smith Hamish Hamilton, 304pp, £16.99
Set yourselves free
Slavery may have been abolished, but Kevin Benfield, a serving prisoner at HMP Wandsworth, argues that young black people are still in thrall to drugs and violence
Observations
Chávez loses - for now
Observations on Venezuela in the wake of that country's crucial constitutional referendum
