01 September 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
The truth about GM
Will GM technology feed the world - or destroy farming, and human health, in the name of corporate profit? How can we tell, when the science is up for sale?
Features
The Joe and Hillary show
Obama has taken a colossal risk in choosing the gaffe-prone Biden and may come to regret not opting for popular Clinton
Asbestos: The lies that killed
Asbestos, now banned in the EU, kills up to 4,000 people a year in the UK alone. In this exclusive report, Ed Howker reveals how the industry hid the truth for decades and why the death toll will certainly continue to rise.
How ministers ignored the 'time bomb' in the classroom
Concerns about asbestos in schools were first voiced in the 1960s yet 13,000 schools today still contain the substance
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
Why Labour should follow its own example on a windfall tax
A Labour government with the confidence it had in 1997 would reclaim this unearned wealth and use it to help the poor
Commons Confidential
Is Gordon going crackers?
In this summer of suspicion, nothing is regarded as confirmed until it is officially denied
Beginning of the end for Putinism
Many Russians persist in viewing Putin as a superman. If truth be told he is a failure
Dance, dance, wherever you may be . . .
Britons are dancing like they've never danced before
A night at the opera
Set by Joy Hosker Inspired by the Royal Opera House's offer of 2,200 seats for a single performance of Don Giovanni to Sun readers, so that the opera reaches "an audience of new faces", we asked you to send in examples of conversations overheard during the interval in the Crush Bar
Culture
State of the nation
The shortlist for the Mercury Prize is a reliable indicator of the national mood. This year Britain sounds like a lonely place fixated with bygone glories
The judge's view
When I look at this year's Mercury shortlist I am as proud as a peacock
Dem bones, dem bones
The latest display at the excellent Wellcome Collection is a haunting hotch-potch of skeletons
Reasons to be cheerful
Gaiety at this year’s Edinburgh Festival was in short supply, but there was gold amid the gloom
Performance
Beauty and the beast
Oscar Wilde's novel is transposed into the vicious world of modern celebrity Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray King's Theatre, Edinburgh
Film
Peaks and troughs
Superb cinematic technique lightens this gruelling tale of hostile mountain life Times and Winds (15) dir: Reha Erdem
Television
Dramedy by numbers
A clichéd comedy about grown-ups and suicide is no laughing matter Mutual Friends BBC1
Radio
In praise of the divine average
The bossy genius of Vaughan Williams is recalled in a trawl through the archives
Books
Calls of the wild
Many of our old wildernesses are dying - like the Arctic - but many, and different, others - on Liverpool's fringes, in the South Bronx - are also being created. The writers in the new Granta report back from the new front lines between nature and civilisation
Sovereignty in the dock
A History of Political Trials from Charles I to Saddam Hussein John Laughland Peter Lang, 315pp, £12.99
Books and bookmen
Grub Street Irregular: Scenes from Literary Life Jeremy Lewis HarperPress, 330pp, £20
Still turning world
The Long-Player Goodbye Travis Elborough Sceptre, 480pp, £14.99 Old Rare New: the Independent Record Shop Emma Pettit Black Dog Publishing, 144pp, £19.95
Peculiar practices
The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People Irving Wallace, Amy Wallace, David Wallechinsky and Sylvia Wallace Feral House, 560pp, £11.99
Charm and cleverness
The Elegance of the Hedgehog Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson Gallic Books, 322pp, £12.99
Observations
Talking to the Taliban
For Afghan insurgents every death, no matter from which side, is a step closer to victory
Monday to Thursday
Growing numbers of American cities, companies and schools are adopting four-day weeks in response to surging fuel costs
Besieged by bad smells
The breakdown of Gaza's overworked sewage system threatens to spill over into an international ecological disaster
