Issue 144
March 2008
Contents
Crime and punishment
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Britain is locking up more people than ever—a policy that some say accounts for falling crime. But there may be other reasons for the drop in the crime rate. Are we imprisoning so many people because we have to, or because we want to?
Europe's failing left
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
The centre left's electorally successful technocratic reform project of the 1990s now seems to have run its course. The left needs a new story—above all for its core supporters—yet one that does not retreat to the failed statism of the 1970s
Happiness studies
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Interest in promoting happiness has grown to the point where there are calls for it to be taught in schools. But there is no formula for happiness, and attempts to teach it may conflict with other things schools want to instil in children
A perfect financial storm
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
The British government is under attack for being too soft on the "super-rich." A new book by the BBC's Robert Peston describes the excesses of private equity and City bonuses. But can these be reined in without damaging a vital industry?
The greening of the south
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
To avoid the most calamitous effects of climate change, rich countries must work out a way of paying poor ones to develop cleanly. But the scale of the transfers required means that big political battles lie ahead—whatever mechanism is finally chosen
China's new intelligentsia
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Despite the global interest in the rise of China, no one is paying much attention to its ideas and who produces them. Yet China has a surprisingly lively intellectual class whose ideas may prove a serious challenge to western liberal hegemony
Should paying for sex be banned?
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Sweden has passed a law making it illegal to pay for sex. Some think a similar move in Britain would be the best solution to trafficking. Would it?
Everyone needs standards
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Few people give much thought to standards, yet from the GSM mobile phone system to the ISBN code they make the world go round. I visited Geneva, home to the world's main standardisation body, to learn more about this engine of globalisation
Staggering on
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Why can't the New Statesman hang on to readers or editors? The magazine's difficulties are symptomatic of broader problems within the British left
A second Gorbachev?
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Although he owes his advancement to Vladimir Putin, Dmitri Medvedev may prove a surprisingly liberal president of Russia
No one's hero
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
What might Chekhov have made of modern Russia's slide into authoritarianism?
Hopeless in Gaza
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Today, despite Hamas's offers of ceasefire, no Israeli politician wants to talk—and so the people of Gaza continue to suffer
Healing postponed
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
For all his lofty talk of national unity, Obama may actually put back the arrival of a post-racial America
Idealism, not leftism
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Obamania may not signal a big shift to the left—but at least it is inspiring Americans again
Theatre's left-wing blimps
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Britain has changed a lot since the 1960s, but you wouldn't know it from its theatre
Faith in the law
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
It's difficult to see how sharia councils could be integrated into the British legal system
The Russian tradition
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Those who want to claim Russia as western ignore her deep historic ambivalence towards liberalism
I'm a non-dom: help me stay
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
It is middle-class foreigners, not the super-rich, who'll be hit hardest by the attack on "non-doms"
A new age of the train
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
The story of Britain's railways is one of chaotic genius in the Victorian era followed by a century of more or less uninterrupted decline. Christian Wolmar charts this history in admirable detail, but succumbs to unwarranted romanticism when it comes to the last days of British Rail
Catastrophe, dystopia and love
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
No writer has been as astute an observer of the contemporary condition as JG Ballard. But through the experiences described in this moving memoir, his work also emerges as personal and universally human
More theory, please
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
James Wood's study of the workings of fiction displays an uncannily well-tuned ear. But for all his undoubted skills as a critic, he lacks the theoretical armoury to take on a subject as general as this
A sporting conservative
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
By turns rhetorical, chatty and argumentative, Ed Smith's musings on sport are united by a gentle conservatism. And much of what the Middlesex cricket captain says makes perfect sense
The unloveable green
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Germany's radical foreign minister—who evoked Auschwitz to persuade his fellow Greens to back the bombing of Serbia—is an awkward character. But Joschka Fischer deserves his place in German history
Smallscreen
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
The ITV series Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach is clever, postmodern stuff—but is it what viewers want straight after Coronation Street?
Widescreen
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Whether you should live where your films are set has long divided filmmakers. But none has entered the lives of his subjects as fully as Shinsuke Ogawa
Private view
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
The 1970s conceptualist Marcel Broodthaers was the true heir to the spirit of Dada. His wise, witty and arcane work is now on show in Milton Keynes
Performance notes
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Herbert von Karajan dominated European orchestral life for over 30 years. On his centenary, is his reputation ebbing? Plus, Radio 3 are bad losers
What you want
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
I have mad thoughts while I'm cleaning. What if I were to be visited by the devil?
Matters of taste
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Does the "latitudinal theory" of culinary development explain why complex cuisine never really took off in sub-Saharan Africa? Plus, two new London restaurants to watch
Washington watch
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
The candidates face the tricky choice of running mates. Can the Obama love-in last? Plus, the neocons rally to McCain, but did he nearly join the Democrats in 2001?
This sporting life
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
The plan to stage Premier League matches abroad is an act of brazen greed—but may yet come to pass. Plus, why Spielberg was right to walk out on the Olympics
China Café
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
My neighbours are building new homes and renting their old houses to foreigners. But the Chinese have a slippery notion of property rights. Plus, the worst winter in 50 years
Lab report
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Space travel is finally being commercialised; even Nasa is bowing to market forces. Plus, scientists plan to decode a thousand genomes—but is that enough?
Brussels Diary
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
Blair's rivals for the European council presidency include Barroso—and maybe Merkel. The Italians may prompt a reshuffle at the commission. Plus, Prince Charles and Bono
Confessions
28th March 2008 — Issue 144
It's daring to confess your sins, but uncool to have regrets. Yet I'm teeming with them. Why, for instance, did I turn down the offer to be the lead singer of the Krautrock band Can?