11 February 2008
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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
Now it gets really dirty
In the wake of Super Tuesday, Andrew Stephen predicts the gloves will now come off in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination
Features
Care revolutionaries
As politicians debate social care, the sixtysomethings of the baby boomer generation are getting ready for a fight. They have seen their future - and they don't like it. Illustration by A Richard Allen
Show of strength
Hugo Chávez says he wants to bring peace to the warring factions in Colombia's cocaine wars but his increasing militarism could destabilise the region.
Bitter freedom
The release of any wrongly imprisoned person is, at first, good reason to rejoice. But sometimes life on the outside is too hard to bear.
Who needs care the most?
Neil Churchill argues that it’s the poor, not the middle classes
Regulars
The Politics Column
Taking the Michael
As the links between money and politics come under ever closer scrutiny, why is David Cameron so coy about the position of Tory deputy chairman and generous donor Michael Ashcroft?
Commons Confidential
The whispers
A bad actor and a poor liar - all the gossip from the Westminster Village
Simmer a chimera No 4013
Set by Hank T Romein In honour of Vincent Cable, who pronounced "awry" as if it rhymed with "Tory" (to much laughter in the House of Commons), we asked for poems relying on similar ignorance of how certain words should be pronounced
Culture
Out of the red
Modernist art that refused to conform was suppressed during the rise of the Soviet Union. Now it forms the climax of a selection from Russia's national archives
Joking apart
Can humour cross cultural boundaries? Not from the look of the Hayward's new exhibition
The way I see it: Nikolai Khalezin and Natalya Koliada
Khalezin and Koliada are playwrights and co-founders of Belarus Free Theatre, a banned organisation that stages covert performances in their homeland. “Being Harold Pinter” and “Generation Jeans” are at the Soho Theatre, London W1, from 11-23 February. For more information visit: www.sohotheatre.com
Performance
Cloudy, cloudy knight
David Hare's latest play offers a wealth of ideas, but a garbled message
Film
Power, corruption and lies
Lead actor and director both shine in a drama dripping with foreboding
Television
Let's do the time warp again
The decade-hopping police series successfully makes the jump to 1981
Radio
That's not what I call music
Once, pop on the radio brought us together - now it's used to divide us
Books
Guessing games
John Mullan recalls that curiosity and concealment have a grand literary history
When killing had to stop
For centuries Europe was a prickly landscape of heavily armed nation states. Now the continent has largely lost its enthusiasm for conflict. How did that happen?
More than a whoop
How Fiction Works James Wood Jonathan Cape, 208pp, £16.99
Gothic horror
Poe: a Life Cut Short Peter Ackroyd Chatto & Windus, 170pp, £15.99
Practical magic
The Craftsman Richard Sennett Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 336pp, £25
Lost and found
His Illegal Self Peter Carey Faber & Faber, 300pp, £16.99
Fun with fossils
Dry Store Room No 1: the Secret Life of the Natural History Museum Richard Fortey HarperPress, 348pp, £20
Early closing time
Shutting Up Shop: the Decline of the Traditional Shop John Londei Dewi Lewis, 144pp, £19.99
Policy in practice
The Social Entrepreneur: Making Communities Work Andrew Mawson Atlantic Books, 192pp, £9.99
Speaking for themselves
Young, British and Muslim Philip Lewis Continuum, 192pp, £12.99
Observations
Is there a British Obama?
We are still decades away from electing Britain’s first black prime minister.
Kosovo was not the issue
In the wake of the Serbian election Kim Bytyci argues Kosovo was not the issue in this crucial poll
My local smoke-easy
Word of mouth suggests there are places all over the city where the management is taking chances with the law
