02 March 2009
Become a subscriber and save £££
Subscribe to the New Statesman for just £87 and receive a free gift.
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
Oona on Maggie
"Maggie was the reason I wanted to be prime minister: I wanted to undo all the misery and damage she had caused", writes Oona King. Also in our Thatcher issue, read David Marquand's verdict on the warrior woman - and on newstatesman.com see Thatcher in pictures.
Features
The stalking horse
Sir Anthony Meyer’s son Ashley remembers his father’s doomed bid to challenge Margaret Thatcher for the Tory leadership in November 1989
The unforgiven
It is impossible to convey to outsiders or the young why Margaret Thatcher is loathed, to this day, writes Paul Routledge. Her regime began and ended in violence, and during her 11 years in power she obliterated entire communities
The view from the Press Gallery
The nervous opposition leader gained confidence - and, as prime minister, turned into a deep-voiced Hammer Horror figure
I was a teenage Tory boy
Harry Mount was seven when Maggie Thatcher came to power. He remains an ardent admirer today - with the odd reservation
Mrs T’s rogues’ gallery
Sholto Byrnes recalls the allies and hangers-on who prospered under Thatcher
Where were you when you heard she was going?
The great and good remember the moment when they heard that Thatcher’s reign was over.
Essay
Au revoir, never goodbye
The values Thatcherism embodied will never go away, argues Dominic Sandbrook, precisely because they are part of mainstream Tory tradition
Regulars
The Politics Column
When blue turned red
The "new" in New Labour was skin-deep: it marked the party's capitulation to Thatcher, writes Martin Jacques
''We know each other well''
Peter Wilby on punts, pints, "Peston" and Premier League cricket
The Politics Column
''That Bloody Woman''
Margaret Thatcher thought she understood Scotland... but no prime minister was ever so hated there. Her legacy was to destroy her party and threaten the Union she loved
Are you the patient?
Surgeons in every UK hospital must now, under new rules, go over a checklist before they operate, to include establishing the identity of the patient and the operation they require. An international study shows that this simple procedure can cut deaths by 40 per cent. We asked for conversations from the surgical team as they operate before the changes bite which demonstrate the need for these new rules
Culture
The shadows of shadows
Lindsay Duncan is the latest actor to portray Margaret Thatcher in drama, but the lady herself remains elusive, a mystery to us, as she was to herself
When silence speaks loudest
Can you treat the Holocaust as an appropriate subject for contemporary art? Not if you use it to give weight to an otherwise thin idea
Performance
A music-hall star for the 21st century
The charismatic rapper born Rodney Smith is a Londonist par excellence. Dan Hancox enjoys Roots Manuva
Film
Please, sir, can we have some more?
Here's a classroom drama that is neither lecture nor tear-stained ode The Class (15) dir: Laurent Cantet
Radio
The age of innocence
A history of agony aunts recalls the days when "bottom" was a banned word
Books
The making of Maggie
As the world awaits Charles Moore's authorised biography, Michael White looks at what so many writers have already made of the Iron Lady's journey from Grantham to Downing Street and her years in power
