05 May 2008

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

Jason Cowley, Editor, New Statesman

Cover story

Everything you want to know about the bank crisis

As the financial crisis enters what the governor of the Bank of England has called a "new and dangerous phase" Iain Macwhirter has been looking at the big questions

By Iain Macwhirter

Features

What's driving the BNP?

By Brendan O'Neill

The rapid growth in support at the ballot box for a nationalist party of the right has gone hand in hand with voter cynicism and disillusion with the main parties

71 comments

Why the housing bubble finally burst

By Alex Brummer

Alex Brummer explains that it's the new homes that are the worst hit as housebuilders have stopped building until their are signs of real economic recovery

1 comment

Is Labour abolishing illness?

By Alison Ravetz

The new rules on incapacity benefit stake everything on a major gamble: that a large proportion of claimants are, in fact, well enough to work

48 comments

Can talking make you better?

By Simon Wessely

CBT does not cure cancer, schizophrenia or arthritis, but it does improve mood, coping and quality of life

23 comments

Forgotten Burma

By Rachel Aspden

Burma is back in the news in the wake of the terrible cyclone. Ahead of this tragedy Rachel Aspden visited the forgotten Burmese resistance. Here is her report.

2 comments

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

The banks need the state's help - so they should abide by its rules

The unfettered market has shown itself to be hugely imperfect. The true logic is that bankers should become paupers

The Politics Column

So what happens next...?

By Martin Bright

Whatever the local election results, Gordon Brown faces a much bigger challenge: to convince sceptical voters that Labour deserves to stay in government

Commons Confidential

The whispers

By Kevin Maguire

Mr Quiffy and the shoe Crewe - all the gossip from the Westminster Village

A private affair No 4025

We asked for a journalist's interview with Livingstone, ostensibly about serious matters, but which aims surreptitiously to get at the truth about his private life Set by Leonora Casement

Culture

Uncool Britannia

By Blake Morrison

An exhibition curated by Grayson Perry reclaims a certain strand of our culture that has been written off as naff, ephemeral, or self-effacing

The time is now

By Alice O'Keeffe

Stars of the Nineties still dominate the media, but British dance music is more exciting today

Shallow waters

By Sue Hubbard

Martin Maloney's paintings take the temperature of tabloid culture. Just don't look to them to inspire

Performance

Going, going . . . gone

By Andrew Billen

Trevor Nunn slips up with this tuneless assault on the English language Gone With the Wind New London Theatre, WC2

Film

Don't look now

By Ryan Gilbey

A gender-bending teen drama plays with the viewer's role as voyeur XXY (15) dir: Lucía Puenzo

Television

A sobering experience

By Rachel Cooke

Is this the beginning of the end for tabloid-style TV news? Let's hope so Ten O'Clock NewsBBC1 News at Ten ITV1

Radio

Not quite as easy as 1,2,3

By Antonia Quirke

A mind-bending lecture about maths leaves us listeners none the wiser

Books

Brush up your Shakespeare

By Jamila Gavin

I have an almost fatal risk gene in my makeup. It seemed folly to take this on having never read or seen the play. But soon I was sharing the director's enthusiasm measure for measure

Promises and betrayals

By Robert Fisk

Seven Pillars of Wisdom was hailed on its first appearance as a historical and literary masterpiece. But, argues Robert Fisk, this memoir of the Arab revolt, and T E Lawrence's other writings, also offer prescient warnings about western policy in the Middle East