Issue 7
April 1996
Contents
Nato's grey zone
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
The end of the cold war has left Nato with a diminished role. Will extending Nato to central Europe help revitalise the organisation and stabilise the new democracies? Or will it unnecessarily aggravate Russia and endanger those countries not in the first wave of enlargement?
Italy's baby Blair
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
Beppe Severgnini talks to Walter Veltroni, the man who wants to turn Italy's ex-communist party into an American-style democraticc party
Educating Peter
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
Two hundred years ago, prison reformer John Howard recommended an austere, labour-intensive programme to rehabilitate criminals. Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, shares his belief in austerity if not in rehabilitation. Our literary prisoner reports from inside
The stake we're in
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
Labour's stakeholder Britain shouldn't try to emulate Germany, argues David Soskice. Germanic institutions would not work in Britain's de-regulated, service-based, economy. Rather, Labour should try to offer people a stake in the new labour market
Peaceful co-existence
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
The retreat of religious faith-Arnold's "long, withdrawing roar"-has not happened as predicted in the 20th century. Even in Europe, where church attendance has fallen sharply, most people still believe in God. Paul Johnson argues that one reason is the surprising truce between science and religion
Absent history
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
Without Nuremberg trials or public memorials to the millions who died in the gulags, post-communist countries cannot come to terms with their past. Anne Applebaum describes the moral and political squalor which results from allowing the criminals of the old regimes to go unpunished
Words and things
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
On the 50th anniversary of Orwell's essay, Politics and the English Language, Andrew Marr finds political English in robust good health-thanks, in part, to Orwell's warnings. Power and brutality still hide behind evasive language, but are now more likely to do so in business and marketing. If Orwell was writing today, his target would be our corporate culture
Welfare's fallow Field
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
Frank Field is one of parliament's most popular and respected mavericks. For this reason the Tory minister, his plans for reforming the welfare state have not received critical scrutiny
Open and closed
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
China is more open than ever, but remains inscrutable to the west-and to itself. Aggression over Taiwan is only the most visible tension arising from chaotic growth
Arms have legs
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
The rush to sell arms to brutal regimes is encouraged by strictly national defence industries. Charles Grant wants more defence mergers and Nato supervision of arms exports
The lab
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
The "Brave New World" brigade is worrying unnecessarily about human cloning
An unexceptional book
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
Observations about American exceptionalism go back to the birth of the republic itself. Alan Ryan finds that Seymour Martin Lipset's latest book offers little new on the subject, but welcomes its conclusion that Americans worry a great deal more than they ought to
An abstract England
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
From Constable's Cornfield at the National Gallery to Abstract Art in the Twentieth Century at New York's Guggenheim, Norbert Lynton considers English views of art
A knight at the opera
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
Edward Pearce enjoyed "The House" and now wants to run Covent Garden
It takes a village idiot
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
The latest book to come out of the Clinton administration is by the First Lady herself. It contains advice on entertaining toddlers (with a sock) and how girls should dress (comfortably). PJ O'Rourke wonders whether Mrs Clinton is really such a nitwit
Goodbye in Berlin
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
The best German films at this year's Berlin film festival came from the former East Germany. They tell simple, sometimes tragic tales of everyday life. Sarah Gellner fears that they could be the last gasp of a great tradition
Monsieur Butterfly
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
The only alternative to social democracy is social democracy
Drugs - legal and illegal
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
Cannabis accounts for 83 per cent of all drug offences in Britain-yet the drug causes neither violence nor death. Alcohol, a legal drug, causes some 25,000 deaths a year. Duncan Campbell examines the arguments for and against legalising some drugs and wonders why the issue is being debated more seriously in the police force than in parliament
Comment (1)Europe versus its past
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
Writing on the eve of the Europe/Asia summit in early March, Brian Beedham explained why Europe is weak and divided
Babel
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
The arguments against freedom of the press are becoming more popular and persuasive
Modern manners
20th April 1996 — Issue 7
Discussing matters of life and death with your six-year-old son