09 November 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 last revolutionary
Fidel Castro has survived 600 assassination attempts to become the world symbol of anti-capitalism. His sister has just confessed she used to spy on him, the US embargo stands, and his health is failing, yet still he endures
Features
The revolutionary road
Fidel’s defining moments
Our future in their hands
It is a myth that David Cameron and George Osborne have no ideas – from elected police chiefs to parents setting up “free schools”, they have armed their party with policies that match their vision of a smaller state
Since the dawn of time
Two hundred years after Darwin’s birth, scientists still can’t agree on whether evolution and religion can happily coexist
Interview
“It would be a missed opportunity not to have a referendum on election day”
An interview with the Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw
Campaign spotlight: Toxic assets
Adam Ramsay, campaigner at People and Planet
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
Leader: Killed in the name of crooked Karzai
The tawdry spectacle of Karzai's "re-election" should shame western leaders
New Statesman Leader
Leader: Electoral change – glimmers of hope?
Electoral reform remains the key to unlocking democracy in this country
First Thoughts
Drugs rows, Aids denial and the post
Legalising all drugs would raise billions in revenue
The Politics Column
Brussels is back with a vengeance
The ratification of the Lisbon Treaty creates new dilemmas for David Cameron-and for David Miliband
Down & Out in London
This bus terminates at Purgatory
The new idea that weekends are times for the Tube to take it easy is most unwelcome
Culture
End of the irony age
Once shocking, much of the work in Tate’s latest survey of pop art now seems tired. It shows how inured we’ve become to big-bucks banality
Books
Invisible
The existential thrillers of Paul Auster remain seductive, but his is a “voodoo enterprise”: a fiction of tricks yet little emotional depth.
