02 June 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
After Bobby Kennedy
Bobby Kennedy's campaign is the model for Barack Obama's current bid to be the Democratic nominee for the White House. Both offer a false hope that they can bring peace and racial harmony to all Americans, writes John Pilger
Features
Being John Prescott
Over the six months it took to ghostwrite John Prescott's memoirs, Hunter Davies found himself astonished at the gulf between the real man and the popular perception of him
Drowning in debt
Today's twentysomethings were brought up to spend today and forget about tomorrow. But now the loans have run out and the banks want their money back
Not for sale
Human trafficking is a $30bn a year global business. Now an influential group of women - politicians, actresses and singers - wants the fight against the trade at the top of the international agenda
Regulars
The Politics Column
The future looks bluer
What would life under the Conservatives really be like? It might turn out to be remarkably similar to life under Gordon Brown
Commons Confidential
No to Non-Stick Steve?
Unrest is close to boiling point...all the gossip from the Westminster Village
A local emergency No 4029
Set by J Seery The sign outside this setter's nearby fire station reads: "Community Fire Station", while Merseyside Police has opened a "Community Police Station" in the Wirral. We asked for an official press release detailing how these differ from the normal stations
Culture
Imagining the east
Once dismissed as imperialist fantasies about the Muslim world, British orientalist paintings are once again becoming popular. Their exotic visions tell us much about the social and cultural history of Victorian Britain
No logo
Public art does not have to be grand and bombastic. It is sometimes more effective when it is modest and reflective
Inside the Maze
Steve McQueen, the UK's official war artist for Iraq, scored a hit at Cannes with a feature film about an IRA hunger striker
Performance
More than words
First-class direction and performances draw new meaning from Shaw's classic Pygmalion Old Vic, London SE1
Film
A woman's right to shoes
Miseryguts and Lobotomy Woman in a tale of gormless materialism Sex and the City (15) dir: Michael Patrick King
Television
The original trout pout
We shrug off Mary Whitehouse as a relic of the past at our own peril Filth: the Mary Whitehouse Story BBC2
Radio
George Lamb: the defence
The BBC 6 Music presenter is actually quite groovy. Shame about his sidekicks
Books
Unfit for purpose
The health of our leaders is important to them - but even more so to us. But, as a new study shows, at critical times our politicians' ability to take decisions has been seriously compromised - and then covered up.
Age shall not wither them
Not Dead Yet: a Manifesto for Old Age Julia Neuberger HarperCollins, 368pp, £18.99
America dreams on
The Return of History and the End of Dreams Robert Kagan Atlantic Books, 117pp, £12.99
