08 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
Features
Can Obama woo the Muslim world?
Obama went to Cairo to woo the Muslim world. But one lofty speech won’t stop America from being loathed
The NS Profile: Michael Sandel
A public intellectual, he delivers lectures at Harvard that are wildly popular. He preaches that the ‘‘vacuum’’ of modern politics can only be remedied by a return to morality
‘‘There may have been no water, but the province was awash with guns’’
Reporting of the conflict in Darfur in the western media reproduces the spurious ethnic categories of British colonialism. The story of the “Arab” presence in Sudan is much more complicated
Essay
Burning down the House
Bereft of ideas, the party leaders are ransacking the storehouse of history. Yet, in their very desperation, they are sowing the seeds of destruction of our political system
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
Comrade turns on comrade in the dying days of New Labour
The country waits for a government to lead again, with or without Mr Brown
The Politics Column
After the massacre
With Brown’s chances of survival “less than 50-50”, a reform agenda with the Lib Dems may be Labour’s only hope
World Citizen
We need an earthquake
Obama has exposed the timidity of Blair and Brown – whose disastrous legacy is a Britain with no strong, credible left-of-centre voice
First Thoughts
The next Fame Academy
. . . on a celebrity parliament, cold-calling Labour and the Mongoose
Down & Out in London
In the relegation zone
When you don’t have enough money to buy the cheapest bottle of wine, it’s hard to feel for the financial plight of Premiership footballers
Shakespeare’s Globe - The people, the places, the events
Paying back in kind, the race to be the next Speaker, and unlikely poetry at the Saatchi Gallery
Culture
The nation's conscience
Representing Britain at this year’s Venice Biennale, Steve McQueen is an extravagant talent. And his experience as an official war artist in Iraq has made him determined to face down uncomfortable truths
Philosophical party music
Rachel Aspden meets El Tanbura, an Egyptian group who are adapting folk traditions to the upheaval of their modern surroundings
Television
Britain's Got Talent
Reality television is a vessel for feelings that dare not speak their name
Radio
Worthy of a great reception
Wildly applauded along London streets in his day, Haydn gets his second wind
Books
Lore of the manor
The country-house novel has always told us more than we might expect about the condition of Britain. No wonder that the genre is ripe for exploitation in an age of greed, debt and empty aspiration.
