07 July 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
Photo essay: Young lives
An exclusive essay on the obstacles laid in the paths of this generation. Plus Suzanne Moore on why young people are unhappy. She argues society has demonised and and silenced them and that it's time for a new approach
Features
When discrimination works
Parents of children who are now at private school are already talking of moving them to the local state sixth form
What the NHS means to me
As the Health Service turns 60, Alan Johnson says Nye Bevan's vision continues to inspire him and points out that a decade ago it was talked of as if it was on its knees
Brown's Scottish play
For 50 years, Scotland was unshakeably Labour. But a string of party blunders has lost it - and the Union - to the Nationalists
A new deal for British children
Why are our young people so unhappy? Because we have become a society that fears, demonises and silences them. The fault is ours, not theirs
The long fight for equality
When women won the vote 80 years ago, many thought true equality was a mere step away. But it has not been so simple
Endless curiosity
W H Auden: Prose, Volume III (1949-1955)
Edited by Edward Mendelson
Faber & Faber, 779pp, £40
On summer schools
Throughout the US and UK, the summer school was a distinctive feature of the progressive age before the Great War. The spirit of those optimistic times is well conveyed in this article, written anonymously for the New Statesman (but possibly by S K Ratcliffe) during the first year of the magazine's life. The Chautauqua Institution in New York State described was founded in 1874, and still holds nine weeks of educational and cultural activities every summer.
Selected by Robert Taylor
Interview
Interview: Ed Balls
With soaring street violence and constant classroom testing, Martin Bright and Suzanne Moore ask the children's secretary, if the next generation is getting a fair deal
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
Ending child poverty is a huge ambition, but it is the right one
It is our responsibility, at whatever cost, to see that we do not squash the indomitable spirit of today’s children
Diary
A short walk in Palestine - or is it Eretz Yisrael?
We stopped to eat our picnic breakfast of Nabulsi goat's cheese and tomatoes - which we had to eat whole because I could not risk being stopped on the road carrying a Swiss army knife
Commons Confidential
David Davis's hard words
The ex-shadow home secretary turned Parliamentary hopeful has hard words for “Helping” Hands
This England
Each printed entry will receive a £5 book token. Entries on a POSTCARD, please, to This England, NS, address here: http://www.newstatesman.com/nscontactus.htm
Shazia's week
There was more hat swapping than wife swapping at this year's Glastonbury
Shaken, not stirred No 4034
Set by Joy Hosker
If Sebastian Faulks can write a Bond novel, why can't others?
Arts & Culture
Enduring memories
The Cuban master film-maker Tomás Gutiérrez Alea trod a fine line, supporting the revolution but insisting that artists should maintain their distance from those in power
Seaside hide-and-seek
The Folkestone Triennial aims to revive the fortunes of an ailing town. But where is all the art?
The way I see it
John Squire
Squire is a musician and painter, best known for having been the guitarist in the Stone Roses. For details of his artwork and forthcoming exhibitions, log on to: http://www.johnsquire.com
Performance
Unenlightened behaviour
Clunking anti-Americanism mars a bold updating of Bernstein's work
Candide
Coliseum, London WC2
Film
Keeping it low-key
A talented writer-director bangs the drum for plain, unremarkable lives
The Visitor (15)
dir: Tom McCarthy
Television
All the wrong lines
Fine performances are wasted on a script that tries too hard to be "relevant"
Criminal Justice BBC1
Radio
Riffing away on Rafa
To my delight, the airwaves are filled with admirers of a certain tennis hero
Travels
Time and the river
A bicycle ride along the Thames Path spirits Nigel Fountain out of the rat race and into London's past
Books
No easy way out
The policy failures of Nato and the United States have left Afghanistan and Pakistan dangerously unstable, argues Ahmed Rashid. And any solution will be difficult as long as Pakistan's army and military intelligence continue to support the Taliban and al-Qaeda
Praise be to Godard
Everything Is Cinema: the Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard
Richard Brody
Faber & Faber, 720pp, £30
Knock, knock
Hammer and Tickle: a History of Communism Told Through Communist Jokes
Ben Lewis
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 368pp, £14.99
