09 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
Crash: The housing crisis is just beginning
As Britain wakes up to the nightmare of negative equity, we are facing a housing recession far worse than that of the early 1990s. Iain Macwhirter has a warning: don't buy a house now, at any price. Just say no. You have been warned
Features
The lessons of Obama
His campaign has rewritten the political handbook and created a new politics of real involvement
The crying game
In north Belfast, loyalist paramilitaries were once vigilantes fighting the IRA. Now they are criminals involved in extortion, drugs and robbery, and their community continues to pay a bitter price
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
Saving the Prime Minister's skin is not a matter of principle
At a time when Brown is fighting for his political life, it is impossible to tell whether what we have is a true process of dialogue
New Statesman Leader
Future visions
With the outlook so bleak for Labour, the government is reacting nervously to ideas of change. But some in the party have spent a long time developing new thoughts on how it can turn things around
Named and shamed No 4030
Set by Tim Hopkins The names of our politicians are actually acronyms. We asked what Brown, Cameron, Darling, or any other politicians' names actually mean
Culture
Everyday people
After 9/11 both Jews and Muslims ceased to be people and became ideas, concepts to be discussed in newspaper columns, internet chat rooms and blogs
Pictures for politicians
The Government Art Collection, for so long shrouded in mystery, is slowly opening up to the public
Performance
Night of the middle-aged bassheads
No longer terrifying, but Public Enemy still have enough gusto to go around Public Enemy Brixton Academy, London SW9
Film
Parental misguidance
Ben Affleck's directorial debut surpasses anything he's done before Gone Baby Gone (15) dir: Ben Affleck
Television
Who comes up with this stuff?
The BBC fulfils its public service remit with some truly awful programmes This Week, Florence Nightingale BBC1 The Culture Show, Women in BlackBBC2
Radio
How not to do political comedy
Marcus Brigstocke is a candidate for unfunniest man in the universe
Books
Scandalous men and terrifying women
Loose Women want to run a clip of me interviewing someone interesting, so they call Newsnight. And I'm busted. Totally
Losing our marbles?
It is one of the most controversial issues in the art world today - should museums disperse their collections and return antiquities to their original sites? In particular, should the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum be restored to Athens?
Everything up for grabs
Scenes from a Revolution: the Birth of the New Hollywood Mark Harris Canongate, 496pp, £20
Get yourself a life
How to Do Biography: a Primer Nigel Hamilton Harvard University Press, 400pp, £14.95
Is there anybody there?
Servants of the Supernatural: the Night Side of the Victorian Mind Antonio Melechi William Heinemann, 304pp, £20
Observations
Secretive saviours
The rivers of cash from big business that Tony Blair wanted to replace trade union money have dried to a trickle
