28 April 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
Everybody out!
The workers are getting restless. Last year, for the second time in five years, more than a million days were lost to strikes. This year the figure is likely to be higher. Is this a return to the militant Seventies? Plus check out the rest of our May Day special
Features
And the winner is: the lawyers
Clinton's victory in Pennsylvania points the way to a farcical legal finale to the Democratic race
Understanding the Taliban
Rethinking the war in Helmand has made the British army revise some of its basic assumptions. Working with "reconciled" Taliban commanders is part of that new strategy
The new strikers
The defeats of the Eighties mean nothing to today's young activists, who are not afraid to try strike action if it works, says Jeremy Dear, trade union leader
Latin America: the attack on democracy
John Pilger argues that an unreported war is being waged by the US to restore power to the privileged classes at the expense of the poor
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
Brown must always remain on the side of the working poor
The parliamentary party is not making it easy for its natural supporters to vote Labour with enthusiasm
The Politics Column
Gordon's big test
The authority of the Prime Minister is based on economic competence and on knowing how to win elections. The coming days will see these skills tested to the limit
Found: a solution to the 10p tax problem
Veteran Labour politician and former minister Michael Meacher suggests ways of offsetting lost revenue from the abolition of the 10p tax problem
Jingle sells all the way No 4024
Set by Hank T Romein "In Downing Street upon the stair/I met a man who wasn't Blair . . ." We asked you to update some other well-known nursery rhymes and jingles to cast new light on a current news item of choice
Culture
Promises, promises
A set of documentary films from 1930 to 1950 shows a Britain in which equality is so near as to feel within grasp. Nostalgia is hard to avoid
Children of destruction
Mat Collishaw, inspired by the Beslan siege, examines our attitude to images of violence
Performance
We are all Cretans
Birtwistle's new work is austere and challenges human nature head-on The Minotaur Royal Opera House, London WC2
Film
Children of the revolution
A minimalist animation sheds light on the muddle of modern Iran Persepolis (12A) dirs: Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi
Television
A dangerous experiment
This appalling documentary was exploitative and irresponsible The Doctor Who Hears Voices Channel 4
Radio
Extraordinary tales of English folk
Late Junction has the power to move (and snooze) in its trip through Albion
Books
Divine inspiration
When Michael Arditti announced he was writing a novel based on the Passion, he was surprised at the alarm he raised. Yet even in modern, secular Britain, he argues, Christianity provides fertile ground for writers
On toffs and Tories
Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes Ferdinand Mount Bloomsbury, 384pp, £20
Balzac in Cairo
Naguib Mahfouz: Egypt's Nobel Laureate Rasheed El-Enany Haus Publishing, 176pp, £9.99
