16 February 2009
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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 New Depression
The business and political elite are flying blind. This is the mother of all economic crises. It has barely started and remains completely out of control. By Martin Jacques, who this week joins the New Statesman as a columnist. Plus don't miss our Q&A
Features
The price of everything
Our arts editor is leaving after three years. Her verdict on the cultural scene is stark: artists, like the rest of us, have been corrupted by money-worship
Don't play it again, Stan
The US base is crucial to operations in Afghanistan, so threats to close it are usually a ploy for more dollars. This time it could be for real
Profile: Pope Benedict XVI
The Pope is emerging as an ultra-reactionary. First he antagonised Muslims. Now he has outraged Jewish groups by favouring a Holocaust denier
Time to rethink realpolitik
Henry Kissinger, once accused of war crimes, is back and working for the Obama adminstration. Is this a sign of American desperation or another example of what Hillary Clinton calls smart power?
Regulars
The Politics Column
Look on the bright side
Labour's attempts to rally Britain with a Blitz-type spirit might just work if the Tories keep insisting that we're all doomed
Commons Confidential
No seat at the top for another Old Etonian
All the gossip from the Westminster village...
The Politics Column
If not Brown, is it Balls?
The Schools Secretary needs to be more of a team player if he is not to alienate his colleagues and jeopardise his party's credibility, as well as his own aspirations to lead it
Take a meteor shower
We asked for revised titles of famous poems which sum them up so exactly that there is no real need for the poems themselves
Culture
From riches to Wags
Palladio's classical aesthetic is now beloved of Prince Charles and Premiership footballers. What would the man himself make of it all?
Film
Rip it up and start again
The Academy Awards are a broken institution, characterised by lunatic delusions of prestige and a compulsion to honour undeserving films. An overhaul is long overdue
Performance
Up close and personal
Stripped bare, the flamenco superstar is more of a puppy than a sleek hound Joaquín Cortés Unleashed Roundhouse, London NW1
Film
Turkish delight
Nuri Bilge Ceylan takes on film noir - and makes it very much his own Three Monkeys (15) dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Television
The art of darkness
This compelling period piece is far more sinister than its critics have argued Mad Men BBC4
Books
Degenerate sublime
The Young British Artists were one of the Nineties' most visible cultural phenomena, a byword for excess in their work and lives. Can an insider's history of Damien, Tracey et al redeem their doubtful legacy?
Between art and life
The Last Supper Rachel Cusk Faber & Faber, 219pp, £16.99
Abandoned dreams
Red Star Over Russia: a Visual History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Death of Stalin David King Tate Publishing, 352pp, £25
Slacker heaven
Camera Jean-Philippe Toussaint Dalkey Archive Press, 125pp, £8.99
Observations
The truth will protect us all
How has a basically decent person such as David Miliband got himself into such a muddle over torture?
