01 June 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
Eternal vigilance
Throughout the 1940s, George Orwell was formulating the ideas about language and politics that found their ultimate expression in Nineteen Eighty-Four. His essays from this period are a plain-spoken pleasure, despite their contradictions
Features
Reform is for anoraks
First thoughts... on an elected second chamber, essential citizens and Esther Rantzen
End of the party
Unlike the Profumo affair, which had no lasting significance, the scandal over MPs’ expenses is the gravest constitutional crisis of modern times
Beware the clunking fist
Ignore the conventional wisdom. The combination of an improving economy and Gordon Brown’s sheer bloody-minded determination could yet deliver a fourth term for Labour
Is France on the verge of another May '68?
Demonstrations and strikes, uproar in the universities and the emergence of a new anti-capitalist party: is France on the verge of another May ’68?
The house where Big Brother was born
A pilgrimage to Jura reveals the distant and untouched glory of Orwell's cottage at Barnhill
Essay
Desperately seeking democracy
For almost a century, the Chinese people have called for freedom. Personal liberty has grown since Tiananmen Square – but politically, China is as stifled as ever
Interview
Interview: Nick Clegg
He is a Westminster newcomer with a hinterland who despairs of Labour and is dismayed by the Tories. And he wants to be prime minister.
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
Labour’s complacency of power
The party must seize the initiative from Clegg and support electoral reform
New Statesman Leader
Orwell: courage in the face of facts
Telling the truth sometimes involves abandoning your friends
The Politics Column
The Ides of June
The local and European elections leave both main parties vulnerable, but Gordon Brown’s career depends on his response
World Citizen
The depth of corruption
Tales of tax evasion and phantom mortgages conceal a more profound venality in our political monoculture
Down & Out in London
Fortune's game-wheel
If you won’t give to beggars, you’re going to have to work hard at becoming a friend of mine
Competition
The factoid of the matter No 4077 Set by Hank T Romein
Culture
Performance
Watch out for the bleeding-heart liberal
This drama skewers the do-gooding in Africa to compelling but chastening effect
Film
Wild boy falls far from glory
McG’s extension of the Terminator franchise is woefully misconceived
Television
Simplistic Simon says: “Look at me, everyone!”
A certain historian needs to learn that he isn’t necessarily the main attraction
Radio
I'm totally respecting your views here
You can find food for thought right around the dial – and not all of it is completely bonkers
The way I see it
Nicky Wire: The way I see it
The Manic Street Preachers bassist on art and politics
The Fan
Toon Army goes belly up
Newcastle fans end the season with three awards in the New Statesman's star-studded prizegiving ceremony
