20 July 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
‘‘Why not me?’’
A recent veteran of the Afghan conflict describes the pain of watching comrades fall and insists that the soldiers are “grossly under-resourced”
The warrior King
Throughout the credit crunch, the governor of the Bank of England has been a trenchant critic of and direct challenge to the government, pushing his independence to the limit. So who is he? What does he want? And will he emerge as the real hero of the crisis?
Essay
Into the inferno
The Indian government has joined forces with corporate giants to create a police state, making people surrender land and livelihoods at gunpoint. What can we do, now that democracy and the free market are one?
Interview
The Politics interview: Douglas Alexander
“There was clearly briefing against me but the task in those circumstances is not to exacerbate those briefings but to get on with the job”
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
Make no mistake, this imperial war in Afghanistan cannot be won
We warned in 2001 that this conflict could put Britain and the US on the wrong side of the moral argument. There is no military solution to the conflict.
New Statesman Leader
In defence of time-wasting . . .
Let's not condemn it-done well and shamelessly, it's almost an art form.
The Politics Column
Where the Sun don’t shine
Gordon Brown's muted response to the phone hacking scandal raises urgent questions over Rupert Murdoch's influence on the government. Both parties must liberate themselves from his grip.
Commons Confidential
The latest whispers from Westminster
First Thoughts
We need you, Sarah Palin
. . . on Morgan Stanley’s boy wonder, and how to risk-manage a wasp.
World Citizen
The game’s as good as lost
Afghanistan has proved the deathbed of every imperial project that has sought to tame it. Sooner or later, the British will leave in defeat
Down & Out in London
Down and out in London
I am depressed that there has been a brothel operating right under my nose, and I knew nothing about it
Culture
The tent is empty
“The art market is on a knife-edge,” Tracey Emin has declared. Launching a series of investigations into art and the financial crisis, Tim Adams traces the falling stock of the melodramatic poster-child of Britart
Building the future
In the 1960s, British architecture was at the forefront of modernism. Is it time for a revival?
Film
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (12A)
Hogwarts may not be a sink school, but there’s still room for improvement
Album Reviews
Mozart: the Complete Violin Concertos
This recording for Nonesuch captures the restlessness of the young Mozart
Books
Facts Are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name
The “historian of the present” Timothy Garton Ash claims to look at the world with unflinching honesty. But he is not facing facts
Short Reviews
Farwell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler and Ten Days that Changed the Nation: the Making of Modern Britain by Stephen Pollard
Observations
“We Uighur, we are powerless”
Violence in the Chinese region of Urumqi has left 156 people dead. Now the Chinese government is blaming the exiled Rebiya Kadeer for the riots
