20 April 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 scent of blood
The desperate men of Downing Street are trying to hang on to power at any cost. Can a bold, progressive Budget save them?
Features
Time, gentleman, please
The British pub used to be the heart of the community and a place of male refuge. Now pubs are closing in their hundreds but the government is doing nothing. Is it really last orders?
The shame of Ehud Barak
The Israeli Labour Party has been destroyed by an opportunistic leader
Look who’s talking
Armando Iannucci’s big-screen debut takes aim at politicians’ desecration of language
The silence of the sands
A photography exhibition in Abu Dhabi draws Sholto Byrnes into the life of a great British explorer
Interview
Stress, sexism and sacrifice of ideals
A London secondary school teacher explains why she had to leave her dream job as a constable after only two years
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
Don't blame it on the bloggers
NS leader on a scandal that goes right to the heart of the Brown government
The Politics Column
Stained by association
Gordon Brown was right to go after the Tories on policy, but his credibility as a moral leader has been hugely undermined by the company he keeps
Down & Out in London
Boredom and despair in W1
I have no money, and no company apart from a plague of insubordinate mice. I would take a bath – only it might make the flat cave in
World view
The reds are revolting
My affair with the red wines of Australia lasted long after I left its shores. Our love was ruined by the industry’s greed for ever bigger global markets
Culture
Strange meetings
A century ago in Vienna, madness and creativity existed side by side. The artists and thinkers who gathered there would shape the modern world
Performance
The kids are all right
With nods to both Peter Pan and Lord of the Flies, a young writer hits her stride
Radio
Organic intellectuals
The airwaves are filled with nostalgic recollections of dead visionary musicians
The Fan
Everyone’s a winner
It’s not fair that only one Prem team each year gets a prize, writes Hunter Davies
Books
Little things that matter
How We Live and Why We Die: the Secret Lives of Cells Lewis Wolpert Faber & Faber, 240pp, £14.99
Let it come down
Night Wraps the Sky Vladimir Mayakovsky; edited by Michael Almereyda Farrar Straus Giroux, 304pp, £14
A difficult business
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work Alain de Botton Hamish Hamilton, 336pp, £18.99
