The Prospect Podcast: Recent Episodes
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The brightest minds discussing the ideas that matter most in politics, society and culture.
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Westminster editor at The Lead UK, Zoë Grünewald, joins the podcast to dissect the Reform party's new “contract with the people”, while Prospect’s editorial fellow Imaan Irfan takes us on a deep dive into The Muslim Vote campaign, a volunteer collective mobilising Muslim voters to elect pro-Palestine third-party and independent candidates.
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Assistant editor Emily Lawford introduces Prospect’s election panel—the ultimate group chat of politics nerds from across the spectrum. One of the team, former Number 10 speechwriter Phil Collins, joins to give his take on the Tory manifesto and much more.
After, Ellen unpacks the crisis in universities with professor of academic history Glen O’Hara, who explains why they are in such trouble and what it means for students.
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As the election campaign whirrs on—media circus in tow—Prospect’s senior editor Alona Ferber is joined by Guardian columnist and author Rafael Behr to look beyond the Westminster bubble and ask: what does the Punch-and-Judy nature of our politics mean for the country,and our democracy?
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On today’s podcast, Ellen Halliday is joined by legendary British pollster Peter Kellner to discuss Sunak’s soggy start and Labour’s “no mistakes” tactics. And calling in from Cape Town, Peter Fabricius, a leading political journalist for the Daily Maverick, explains why the ruling ANC could lose its majority for the first time since 1994—and what the outcome could mean for the South Africa in the world.
Read Kellner's column and Fabricius’s feature here.
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As a series of encampments have sprung up at universities around the world, what do the Gaza protests tell us about freedom of speech at these often-embattled institutions? Author and Cambridge professor Priyamvada Gopal joins Ellen Halliday to dive beyond the headlines on this divisive story.
Read Priymavada's piece here.
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This month, our writers are mulling over questions of identity: Sheila regrets her lifelong habit of judging people by appearances while sex-worker and author Tilly Lawless considers the solidarity that exists between sex-workers and trans-women. OCD sufferer Sarah Collins feels destabilised by her recent birthday, while Anglican Priest Alice Goodman is forced into a new role by her health: that of a hospital patient.
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The United States has been ravaged by synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and a few months ago, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that a similar disaster might be coming for Europe. Is he right? Freelance journalist Ella Glover joins Prospect’s deputy editor Ellen Halliday to discuss who is really at risk from nitazenes—a category of synthetic opioids linked to an increasing numbers of deaths in Britain—and how prepared the UK is to protect them.
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The local elections went very badly for the Tories and pretty well for Labour—but what can the results really tell us about the upcoming general election? Prospect columnist and pollster Peter Kellner joins deputy editor Ellen Halliday to explain why Sunak is overselling the odds of a hung parliament, why Sadiq Khan underperformed in London and why Reform could still be the Conservatives’ biggest headache.
Read Peter’s latest column here.
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This month, Jason Thomas-Fournillier, Prospect’s Displaced life writer makes a reappearance to reveal some truly exciting news about his story of seeking asylum in the UK.
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Polls suggest Labour is set to win the next general election—but if it does, it will face governing in dismal economic circumstances. What would it take for Labour to transform the country, despite the apparent lack of money available to government?
Perhaps more importantly, what should the animating moral principle of a potential new Labour government be? And is Keir Starmer prepared to be bold in pursuit of a vision—or will he be timid?
Will Hutton, economist, columnist and author of new book This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain joins Ellen Halliday on the podcast.
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Author, politician and former member of the Israeli Knesset Avraham Burg joins Ellen Halliday to discuss political leadership in Israel and the influence that extremist voices are having on Netanyahu. Burg argues Israelis must push for the change in leadership needed for the nation to pursue a more peaceful path.
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Last year three councils in England went bust, and the BBC political research unit has reported that one in five councils have warned of effective bankruptcy in five years, unless there is reform. Contributing editor Tom Clark joins Ellen Halliday to unpick the deficit in local government funding, and to the chart the sorry course of Birmingham, a city that was once the cradle of municipal governance, which is now run by a bankrupt council that is forced to make unprecedented cuts.
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Prospect contributing editor Isabel Hilton is joined by Margot Wallström, a former Swedish foreign affairs minister and head of the High-Level Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of the War in Ukraine. They discuss the environmental damage Russia’s war has caused in Chernobyl and across the country. Also on the podcast, climate scientist Gavin Schmidt discusses the worrying news that climate models can’t explain 2023’s historic temperature high.
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Author and journalist Phil Tinline joins Ellen Halliday on the podcast to discuss the threat Trump poses to US democracy and the cross-partisan movement of lawyers, activists and politicians fighting to safeguard it.
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For our cover story this month, author, broadcaster and theologian Andrew Graystone explores media tycoon Paul Marshall’s God-driven mission to reshape Britain. He joins deputy editor Ellen Halliday to discuss Marshall’s life, faith and media empire—and why it matters for Britain.
Read Andrew Graystone's cover story here.
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This month, OCD sufferer Sarah Collins faces her phobia of sleeping alone, while Gen Z-er Alice Garnett reflects on a search for a new job. Former England cricket captain Mike Brearley celebrates the many apprenticeships he's completed both in sport and in life.
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Rumours abound about the so-called “billionaire” city planned by a former banker and his backers in Solano County California. Is California Forever, as the project is known, a money-making scheme for those disillusioned with San Francisco’s rocketing prices and accumulating problems? Or is it just America’s answer to Milton Keynes? Author and broadcaster Deyan Sudjic joins the podcast to discuss the California Forever and what it illustrates about how capitalism grapples with the crisis in affordable housing.
Read Deyan's piece here.
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Handing cash to rough sleepers has always been a controversial act, but is it actually the solution to our homelessness crisis? It’s an idea that award-winning journalist and author Samira Shackle explored in a feature for the most recent issue of Prospect. Shackle joins Ellen Halliday and Jonathan Tan, chief executive of non-profit Greater Change, on the podcast to discuss cash transfers, universal basic income and other measures that could ease Britain's growing homelessness problem.
Read Samira Shackle’s feature here.
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In this special episode of the podcast, 91-year-old actor Sheila Hancock and 24-year-old writer Alice Garnett discuss the age-old question: are things really harder for the young?
Gen Z Alice and nonagenarian Sheila are joined by Prospect’s boomer editor Alan Rusbridger and millennial Sarah Collins to discuss everything from housing to climate change to mental health—and whether there’s anything one generation can learn from the other.
This conversation with two of Prospect’s Lives columnists is also available to read in the latest issue.
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Kim Darroch, who was the UK ambassador to the US from 2016-2019, joins Ellen Halliday to discuss how likely a second Trump presidency is and how the UK and Europe should prepare for it. In a wide-ranging conversation that covers Trump's domestic agenda and foreign policy regarding Nato, China, Ukraine and Gaza, Darroch argues that there are steps the UK can take to help Trump-proof our geo-politics.
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Leading European historian Timothy Garton Ash joins Ellen Halliday to discuss the death of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, the challenges facing the Ukrainian armed forces and the west’s unpreparedness in dealing with Putin.
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Physical cash is dying—but should we be worried about the consequences, or leave that to conspiracists and cranks who are concerned about digital payments? Author and journalist Stuart Jeffries joins Ellen Halliday to discuss what the payments of the future might look like, from cryptocurrency to Amazon wishlists, as well as an unusual group of rebels who are burning cash to make a point.
Read Stuart's feature here.
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This month, some of our writers are looking towards the future while others are reflecting on the past, reassessing their hopes and beliefs. Sex worker Tilly Lawless is in a new kind of relationship with new norms for communication while actor Sheila Hancock is renouncing republicanism, after developing an affection for the Royals in her older age. Meanwhile, Sarah Collins, who suffers with OCD, reflects on how a health incident from years ago has sparked a present-day obsession—and a chat with his father gives Tom Martin pause for thought about his physical fitness on the farm.
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So far, since 7th October, Hezbollah has held back from an all-out war with Israel. How long can that last? And, as tensions rise in the Red Sea, what motivates the Houthis, Iran and the “Axis of Resistance” in the Middle East? Simona Foltyn, an independent journalist, writer and videographer, joins the podcast to discuss what she’s seen and heard.
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When Swifties spotted connections between their favourite singer and a new spy thriller, Argylle, a theory took hold: was the book, ostensibly by a debut writer Elly Conway, actually written by the reigning queen of pop? Why did Apple Studios pay £200 million to adapt a book that hadn't even been published yet? And what does the mystery of Argylle say about the publishing industry and online fandom today? Assistant editor Sarah Collins and Books and Culture editor Peter Hoskin join Ellen Halliday to get sleuthing.
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Economist Daron Acemoglu is officially Prospect'sTop Thinker of 2024. A professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Acemoglu is an expert in labour, technology, development and political economy. His work tackles a difficult problem: how can we ensure power and reward are shared fairly as technology remakes our world? Acemoglu joins Prospect contributing editor Tom Clark on the podcast to discuss all that, plus democracy, liberty and the institutions that uphold them.
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Legendary pollster and political analyst Peter Kellner joins Ellen Halliday and assistant editor Emily Lawford to explain how political polling works and to assess how effective it is at predicting election results. He also trails his new Election countdown column, which will launch on the 29th of January and will give a weekly dose of analysis in the run-up to the UK general election.
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As the Safety of Rwanda Bill returns to Parliament, Helen Mountfield, Murray Hunt and Richard Hermer discuss the myriad ways it breaches international law and undermines the rule of law.
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Emeritus professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, Avi Shlaim joins Ellen Halliday to discuss his experience as an Arab Jew and how it has informed his perspective on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
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As Taiwan prepares to hold key elections on 13th January, China is escalating its campaign to influence the vote’s outcome. What will 2024 look like for Taiwan? And could the CCP’s “grey zone” tactics, which currently fall short of war, and include military drills and cyber operations, escalate into outright conflict? Elizabeth Green, a researcher on China, Taiwan and cross-strait relations joins Prospect contributing editor Isabel Hilton to discuss. Elizabeth has used a pseudonym to protect her identity.
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The team discuss the turbulent year that's passed and give predictions for the year ahead, as well as sharing their highlights fromProspect in 2023.
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This classic Richard Curtis film turned 20 this year but has been criticised for being elitist, misogynistic and farfetched. In a festive Prospect conversation, Books and Culture Editor Peter Hoskin and Assistant Editor Sarah Collins debate whether the film is the defining Christmas movie or a dated dud.
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A decade ago, Eliot Higgins founded an organisation that would transform investigative journalism. During the past ten years, Bellingcat has used (mostly) open-source methods to unmask the Salisbury assassins and Navalny’s poisoners, and give Putin a bloody nose. But who is the unassuming man behind that tenacious outfit? And will his skilled, open-source sleuths be able to keep up with the ever-growing mass of mis- and disinformation? Freelance writer Tom Lamont joins deputy editor Ellen Halliday to discuss.
Read Tom’s profile here.
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What do the Israel-Gaza and Russia-Ukraine wars demonstrate about US power in the world? For the cover story of our latest issue, out today, author and professor of law and history at Yale, Samuel Moyn argues that America's mission to lead humanity in a new world order is failing.
Read Samuel's essay here.
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As COP28 kicks off in the UAE, former UK diplomat Simon Sharpe joins Ellen Halliday to discuss why the current approach to climate diplomacy—the kind that saw deals struck in Paris and Glasgow—doesn’t really work. Drawing on his book Five Times Faster: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change, Sharpe answers a pressing question: what could help us cut emissions at the pace the planet needs?
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Prospect contributing editorIsabel Hilton draws on her experience reporting from Argentina as she joins the podcast to discuss the country’s new far-right, “anarcho-capitalist” president, Javier Milei, and what his election means for the world.
Read Isabel's piece on the Argentinian economy here.
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The future of the humanities has become a new frontier in the culture wars. But are they really in crisis? Priyamvada Gopal, who is a professor of English at Cambridge and a scholar at Princeton, joins Ellen Halliday to discuss the assault on the humanities, and why we should defend them.
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Peter Ricketts, former permanent representative to Nato and permanent under-secretary to the Foreign Office from 2006-2010, joins the podcast to discuss how ceasefires and humanitarian pauses work, and which conditions would need to be met to bring an end to the fighting between the IDF and Hamas.
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Jordan-based writer Khaled Mansour—who spent thirteen years working for the United Nations—joins the podcast to discuss the geopolitical implications of the Israel-Gaza war. He discusses how states in the Middle East have responded to the conflict and what it would take to bring peace to the region.
Prospect brings rigorously fact-checked analysis, ideas and perspectives to the big topics the world is grappling with. Special offer: buy a digital subscription for only £3 for three months access (then £49 annually). Click here to subscribe.
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As a listener to the Prospect Podcast, we’d like to introduce you to another podcast series made by Prospect Magazine that we think you will enjoy. Media Confidential is presented by Prospect editor, Alan Rusbridger and he’s joined by Lionel Barber, former editor of the FT where he was at the helm for 14 years. Media Confidential takes you behind the headlines and beyond the click bait to discover the truth behind the big stories: this week Alan and Lionel analyse how the BBC and other news organisations have been covering the Israel—Hamas war.
If you enjoy Media Confidential, please be sure to follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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Matthew Goodwin and David Aaronovitch debate whether Britain is run by an out of touch elite. Matthew Goodwin thinks that there's a new elite of radically progressive, morally righteous graduates who are dominating Britain's major institutions and imposing on the British public costly policies of hyper globalization and mass migration. David Aaronovitch thinks this as an absurd conspiracy theory that is only serving as a cover for a far-right political agenda. Who's right? Let’s join the debate with David, Matthew and Jo Coburn, who kindly moderated the event last week.
Prospect brings rigorously fact-checked analysis, ideas and perspectives to the big topics the world is grappling with. Special offer: Buy a digital subscription for only £3 for three months access (then £49 annually).
Click here to subscribe.
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How do we begin to understand the events in both Israel and Gaza from a legal perspective? In this episode of the Rule of Law podcast—produced in association with Matrix Chambers—human rights barrister Richard Hermer discusses the laws of war with Andrew Clapham, a professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.
Please note, this podcast was recorded on Sunday 16th October.
Prospect brings rigorously fact-checked analysis, ideas and perspectives to the big topics the world is grappling with. Special offer: buy a digital subscription for only £3 for three months access (then £49 annually).
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Investigative journalist Nicola Cutcher explains why nature is, surprisingly, struggling inside many of the UK’s national parks. So, can the Bannau Brycheiniog national park in Wales, formerly known as the Brecon Beacons, revive it, and bring wildlife back from the brink?
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Sam Freedman talks to Ellen Halliday about his first visit to a Labour party conference in several years. In Liverpool he finds a very professional and prepared party aiming to be in power after the next election.
Prospect brings rigorously fact-checked analysis, ideas and perspectives to the big topics the world is grappling with. Special offer: Buy a digital subscription – only £3 for three months' access (then £49 annually).
Click HERE to subscribe.
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Lionel Barber has an exclusive conversation with Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England. In a rare interview Bailey sheds light on a difficult period for the bank: covid, the end of the furlough scheme and the brief period where Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng were in charge of the country. Looking ahead, he says there will be more shocks to come.
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After more than a decade of devastation in Syria, the country has slipped off the international news agenda. And Arab nations are embracing Bashar al-Assad once again. Lizzie Porter, an award-winning journalist and senior correspondent for Iraq Oil Report joins Ellen Halliday on the podcast to discuss what this means for the Syrian people.
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Donald Trump, Brexit, Covid-19: for a little while it seemed like nothing could stop the march of globalisation. But as tussels between the US and China come more sharply to the fore, will it finally have met its match? Barry Eichengreen, economist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, joins Alan Rusbridger to discuss whether free trade and global markets can endure in the face of growing geopolitical rivalries.
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For Prospect’sOctober cover story,author, journalist and contributing editor Matthew d’Ancona asked why political centrism died and what it would take to revive it. He joins Alan Rusbridger on the podcast to outline how a new radical centrist movement could defeat the populists.
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Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician and British national, has been sentenced to 25 years in a maximum-security Russian penal colony. Talking to Ellen Halliday, his mother Elena Gordon reflects on his early life and his commitment to Russian democracy.
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With interests rates rising and inflation falling, is the economy heading in the right direction? Or are we teetering on the brink of recession? And how will the current economic turbulence shape our politics before the next general election? Paul Wallace, freelance journalist and former European economics editor at The Economist, joins Prospect's managing editor Alex Dean to explain the context behind the headlines.
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Can the Stoics help solve the mental health crisis? Should we adopt an Epicurean approach to pleasure? On this week's podcast, writer and lecturer Jane O'Grady joins Prospect's Mindful life columnist Sarah Collins to discuss whether the ancient Greeks can teach us how live.
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Two years on from the fall of Kabul, is the west's soft engagement with the Taliban working? David Loyn, an award-winning foreign correspondent who was with the Taliban when they took Kabul in 1996 and has visited Afghanistan ever since, explains toProspectdeputy editor Ellen Halliday why he thinks the UK government should change its approach.
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In this week’s episode, managing editor Alex Dean speaks to science writer Philip Ball on artificial intelligence: what it is, how it works and how it might even change our perception of what it means to have a mind.
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Is the British criminal justice system heading towards the same level of dysfunction as its US counterpart? Former executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, reports back to Alan Rusbridger, after visiting prisons across the UK for a feature in the latest issue of Prospect.
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Christopher Nolan's new film inspires Prospect's arts and books editor Peter Hoskin and contributing editor Matthew d'Ancona to consider how the atomic bomb has impacted our culture. They discuss 'Oppenheimer' and the other books, films and video games that have grappled with the events of August 1945.
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For the latest issue of Prospect, we askedSam Fankhauser, professor of climate change economics at the University of Oxford, and Kate Raworth, author of ‘Doughnut Economics’, how to build an economy that supports rather than damages nature and the climate.This episode of the Prospect Podcast—hosted by deputy editor Ellen Halliday—is an audio extract from their conversation.
Barristers Richard Hermer QC and Zoe McCallum from Matrix Chambers are joined by Dr Tim Lillicrap, research director at Google DeepMind to discuss artificial Intelligence and the future of justice.
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The novels inspired by the pandemic have, so far, been very inward-looking. But the form is already mutating. Critic and editor Lucy Scholes and author Daisy Hildyard join Prospect’s arts and books editorPeter Hoskin to discuss the first wave of Covid literature.
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How did the comedian, actor and political provocateur of the early 2010s become an influential voice among the alt right? Sarah Manavis—who profiled Russell Brand for the most recent issue of Prospect—joins Ellen Halliday to delve into his conspiratorial world.
If you enjoyed this podcast, listen to our Prospect Lives podcast here: https://podfollow.com/prospect-lives/view
Music Credit: "JUMBO" from the album "MUSIC FOR THE LEFT-HANDED" by Mick Bass & Tot Taylor
Throughout centuries of imperial and Soviet history, the Ukrainian language was denigrated as something “less” than Russian. After Putin’s invasion, that tide is rapidly turning. In this episode, writer and photojournalist Jen Stout reports on Ukraine's war of the words to Prospect deputy editor Ellen Halliday.
If you enjoyed this podcast, listen to our Prospect Lives podcast here: https://podfollow.com/prospect-lives/view
Music Credit: "JUMBO" from the album "MUSIC FOR THE LEFT-HANDED" by Mick Bass & Tot Taylor
For Prospect's brand new cover story—out today—journalist and author David Aaronovitch reports back from the National Conservatism Conference to Prospect editor Alan Rusbridger. They discuss how the conference exposes a dark undercurrent to the modern right, and ask an important question: are these so-called patriots the future—or an embarrassing sideshow?
If you enjoyed this podcast, listen to our Prospect Lives podcast here: https://podfollow.com/prospect-lives/view
Music Credit: "JUMBO" from the album "MUSIC FOR THE LEFT-HANDED" by Mick Bass & Tot Taylor
Coastal towns are home to some of the highest levels of deprivation in Britain and our nostalgia for the seaside is holding them back, argues award-winning journalist and author Madeleine Bunting in her new book The Seaside: England's Love Affair. On the podcast, she joins Ross Mudie, a research analyst at The Centre for Progressive Policy, and assistant editor Sarah Collins to discuss Britain's complex relationship with its coast, and what the government should do to support the communities who live there.
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The academic and cultural commentator Sarah Churchwell wrote a book on how Gone with the Wind—novel and film—has afflicted US politics. In a live recording of the Prospect Podcast, she talks to Prospect’s books and culture editor, Peter Hoskin, about the books, movies, albums and other cultural items before and since Gone with the Wind that have also changed the wider culture around them—in both good ways and bad. What works will come to define our times?
If you enjoyed this podcast, listen to our Prospect Lives podcast here: https://podfollow.com/prospect-lives/view
Music Credit: "JUMBO" from the album "MUSIC FOR THE LEFT-HANDED" by Mick Bass & Tot Taylor
For years, Britain’s most powerful newspapers spied on anyone they thought might lead them to a juicy story. No victim was ever so angry and so fabulously wealthy that they could afford to risk everything in fighting back. Until now. Freelance writer Tom Lamont joins Alan Rusbridger to tell the inside story of the bitter battle between Prince Harry and the newspapers that hounded him, and how the phone hackers of the past have switched sides to help him.
If you enjoyed this podcast, listen to our Prospect Lives podcast here: https://podfollow.com/prospect-lives/view
Music Credit: "JUMBO" from the album "MUSIC FOR THE LEFT-HANDED" by Mick Bass & Tot Taylor
After decades of environmental destruction in the Niger Delta, the fossil fuel giant Shell faces the prospect of a trial. Can legal action make amends, retrospectively, for the human and planetary consequences of pollution? Journalist and podcaster Mathilda Mallinson, Matthew Renshaw, a partner in the international department at Leigh Day, and Pedi Obani, associate professor at the University of Bradfordi, join Ellen Halliday on the podcast.
Prospect Lives podcast: https://podfollow.com/prospect-lives
Music Credit: "JUMBO" from the album "MUSIC FOR THE LEFT-HANDED" by Mick Bass & Tot Taylor
In a new documentary film Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power, award-winning independent filmmaker Nina Menkes puts the male gaze in cinema under the microscope. She joins Prospect's arts and books editor Peter Hoskin on the podcast to discuss how Hollywood taught us to objectify women.
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How did our politics become so polarised? Do governments listen to protest? And what should people who are angry about the state of the country do to change it? Journalist, author, co-host ofThe Rest is Politics podcast and former Downing Street director of communications Alastair Campbell joins Alan Rusbridger to discuss his new book But What Can I do?
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Has Britain reached peak inequality and is it becoming more equal for the first time in a century? Danny Dorling, professor of Human Geography at the University of Oxford advances this radical argument in discussion with Deborah Hargreaves, former CEO of the High Pay Centre and Prospect's deputy editor Ellen Halliday.
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What impact will the bank holiday nurses' strike have on patients? Will the government ever get round the negotiating table with junior doctors? And will this industrial action bring the already struggling NHS to its knees? Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing and Rachel Sylvester, columnist at The Times and chair of The Times Health Commission join assistant editor Sarah Collins on the podcast.
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Former treasury chief Nick Macpherson and eminent Keynesian economist Ann Pettifor debate whether the coalition's cuts were necessary—and whether they worked.
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After the 2020 election, Fox News gave airtime to an outright fiction: that Biden had stolen the presidency. As the company is sued over what it broadcast, legal documents reveal how far the Murdochs will go to keep America’s biggest channel on top. Journalist Matthew d'Ancona, who is a former editor of the Spectator, and Sarah Ellison, staff writer at the Washington Post join Alan Rusbridger to discuss Prospect's cover story.
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Richard Hermer KC speaks with Raza Husain KC and Sile Reynolds (Freedom from Torture) about the pressing Migration Bill—designed to deter refugees arriving into the UK on small boat—being pushed through UK Parliament. They discuss whether the bill can be overruled by the ECHR or the Refugee Convention.
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What does the big libertarian idea of "zones of exception" mean for the nation state? Award-winning author and professor of history Quinn Slobodian joins contributing editor Tom Clark to discuss his new book Crack-up Capitalism, Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy.
What if the reason poverty persists in capitalist democracies like the US and Britain is because the rest of us benefit from it? What if the solution means facing up to the ways we all profit from the exploitation of low-income people? Pulitzer Prize winning author Matthew Desmond joins the podcast to discuss his radical new book Poverty, By America with Tom Clark, editor of new book Broke: Fixing Britain's poverty crisis and Sarah Collins, assistant editor at Prospect.
Alfie Stirling chief economist at the New Economics Foundation and Lara Spirit Red Box reporter at the Times join Alan Rusbridger discuss today's budget.
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20 years on from the US led invasion of Iraq, what is life like in Baghdad today? Award-winning Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad joins Alan Rusbridger to discuss his new book—which has been fourteen years in the making—A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East's Long War.
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With growing numbers of people crossing the channel in small boats and the backlog of asylum claims at record levels, immigration has become a key issue for a government whose approach to fixing the system has favoured rhetoric over results. For the cover story of our April issue, David Normington, former permanent secretary for the home office from 2006-2010, and May Bulman, investigations editor at Lighthouse Reports, discuss how the government could solve the immigration crisis. They join deputy editor Ellen Halliday on the podcast.
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How do memories of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution shape modern China? And why does Xi Jinping seek to control the ways people remember? Tania Branigan—a Guardianleader writer and author of Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution—and Isabel Hilton, who is a contributing editor at Prospect and founder of China Dialogue, join Ellen Halliday to discuss China's relationship with it's own history.
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Most conflicts end through negotiation. But how can Putin be trusted given the horrors of his war in Ukraine? Jonathan Powell, who represented the UK government in forging the Good Friday Agreement, and Vladimir Milov, who was Russia’s Deputy Minister of Energy in 2002, join Ellen Halliday to discuss whether peace talks will ever be possible.
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Is Labour on track to win the next general election? Does Keir Starmer have the right strategy? Seasoned political journalist and pollster Peter Kellner and former head of political strategy for the Labour party, Greg Cook, join Alan Rusbridger to discuss why the next election is Labour’s to lose.
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How can you satirise a government as farcical as the current one? If Labour wins the next election, how mockable will Keir Starmer be? Alan Rusbridger is joined by actor and comedian Rosie Holt—whose impersonation of a Tory MP set the internet on fire during the lockdowns—and comedian and producer Josh Berry, who in December 2019 created the fictional character of Rafe Hubris, an Eton-educated, implacably self-confident special advisor to Boris Johnson.
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Tens of thousands of working age people with terminal illnesses are dying in poverty in the UK, as the safety net fails to catch them in their final year of life. Could a relatively cheap and simple policy change solve this cruel problem? Helen Barnard, associate director at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Sam Royston, Director of Policy and Research at Marie Curie join assistant editor Sarah Collins on the podcast.
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As the winter of discontent continues, with a building public service crisis and escalating industrial action, the government has responded by trying to pass legislation to control the unions and clamp down on protests. But what are the political consequences of this approach? What does the public think? And what will happen next? Veteran political journalist and pollster Peter Kellner and Naomi Smith, chief executive of campaigning organisation Best for Britain join Alan Rusbridger to discuss.
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More than 320 days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Rafael Behr and Francesca Ebel join Alan Rusbridger to discuss how Russians themselves have responded to the war. Are they fighting, fleeing or resisting?
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The team discuss the turbulent year that's passed and give predictions for the year ahead, as well as sharing their highlights from Prospect in 2022.
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What do a farmer, an actor and an Anglican priest have in common? How will Sheila Hancock celebrate her 90th birthday and what will Tom Martin's sheep do on Christmas Day? Three of Prospect's seven Lives columnists—who write a monthly reflection on their experiences of modern Britain—join Alan Rusbridger for a festive catch-up.
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For decades, China has been the engine of the global economy, but what if it is stalling? Journalist and founder of China Dialogue, Isobel Hilton and historian and author Rana Mitter join Alan Rusbridger to discuss Xi Jinping's change of direction and the consequences for the rest of the world.
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This winter—perhaps more than any other—we’re aware that there are millions of people languishing on waiting lists for treatment, and ambulance response times are getting longer and longer. Is it time to replace the NHS wholesale? Alexander Menden, a journalist for the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and author of the cover story of Prospect's winter special, How not to fix the NHS, joins Sally Warren, director of policy at the King's Fund and Melanie Phillips, journalist for The Times to discuss this question.
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The climate crisis and Russia's invasion of Ukraine have reinvigorated debate about the role of nuclear energy in decarbonising our grid. Bryony Worthington, a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, who has spent a career on conservation, energy and climate change issues and Simon Evans, deputy editor at Carbon Brief join Ellen Halliday to discuss why the answer is more complicated than you might think.
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Five and half years on from the fire that killed 72 people in a high-rise block in North Kensington, 400 days of testimony to a public enquiry have ended. But will anyone be held accountable for the mistakes that led to the disaster? And are the survivors any closer to getting justice? Peter Apps, deputy editor of Inside Housing and author of new book "Show Me the Bodies: How we let Grenfell Happen" joins Sarah Collins on the podcast.
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Leading political journalist and pollster Peter Kellner and Alfie Stirling, chief economist at the New Economics Foundation, unpack today's Autumn Statement with deputy editor Ellen Halliday.
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It’s 80 years since William Beveridge identified the five giant problems holding back post-war Britain, laying the groundwork for the welfare state. Today, that welfare state appears in crisis—but has it failed, or has it simply not evolved after completing its original tasks? Paul Maynard, Conservative MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, and Helen Barnard, associate director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, join Ellen Halliday to discuss what the welfare state must fix next.
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Pulitzer Prize-winning author and professor at Harvard University, Caroline Elkins joins Richard Hermer, Murray Hunt and Helen Mountfield to discuss her new book Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire.
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Does Sheffield have a productivity problem? Or is it a city on the verge of "levelling up"? Contributing editor Tom Clark and Sheffield born podcasting maestro Dino Sofos join Alan Rusbridger to discuss Sheffields post-industrial revolution.
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Is it too difficult to dismiss officers who commit misconduct from the police? Are there a few rotten apples or a culture of sexism? Helen King, former assistant commissioner for the Metropolitan Police and principal of St Anne's College Oxford, and Emily Lawford, assistant editor at Prospect join Sarah Collins on the podcast to discuss Baroness Casey's recent review.
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Resigning as prime minister this afternoon, Liz Truss has been outlived by the Daily Star's lettuce. Peter Kellner and Naomi Smith return to the podcast to discuss how Truss was toppled and which of the leadership hopefuls might follow her.
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After another chaotic week in Westminster—in which Penny Mordaunt had to reassure the House of Commons that prime minister Truss was not "hiding under a desk"—chief executive of Best for Britain Naomi Smith and seasoned political journalist Peter Kellner join Alan Rusbridger to discuss whether Truss can cling on.
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Despite being overall a wealthy country, the UK has the second highest income inequality in the G7—a point best exemplified by the huge disparity in wealth between the top executives and the lowest paid in some of the country’s biggest countries.
In this week’s podcast, deputy editor Ellen Halliday is joined by Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, and Sandy Pepper, emeritus professor of the London School of Economics, to discuss how CEO pay packets got so out of control—and whether or not there’s a way to fix it.
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Observer writer Sonia Sodha and political columnist at The Times, Rachel Sylvester join Alan Rusbridger on the podcast to discuss an eventful week at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham.
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The announcement of the chancellor's mini-budget—including tax breaks for the highest earners and cuts to stamp duty—threatens to ignite an already raging public anger, argue journalist John Lloyd, political economist Will Hutton, and Taj Ali, member of the Enough is Enough Campaign. They join Prospect deputy editor Ellen Halliday on the podcast.
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David McAllister hosts a quick-fire roundup of some of the most interesting books of the month with the writers who reviewed them in Prospect. Sarah Collins discusses Elizabeth's Strout's pandemic novel, Lucy by the Sea while Lucy Thynne tells us about Shehan Karunatilaka’s latest book, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. Peter Forbes reviews Prospect science writer Philip Ball's The Book of Minds, while David reviews Murray Pittock's new history Scotland.
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What are the emotional consequences of precarious housing? How do we reframe the housing crisis from a "knotty policy problem" to a "fundamental issue of justice"? Planning barrister and author of a new book A Home Of One's Own, Hashi Mohamed joins Sarah Collins on the podcast, along with Ben Reeve-Lewis, co-founder of housing charity Safer Renting.
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Political journalists Ailbhe Rea, Peter Kellner and Lara Spirit join Alan Rusbridger to discuss about our new prime minister, Liz Truss—and what we can expect from her early days in government.
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In light of the horrific attack on Salman Rushdie on the 12th August, Sameer Rahim joins the podcast to discuss The Satanic Verses and the debates contained within book.
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Last week inflation hit double figures for the first time in 40 years, while real wages saw their largest drop since records began. So, what does this bleak picture mean for people on the lowest-incomes? Helen Barnard, Associate Director at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Stu Hennigan, author of the book Ghost Signs, Poverty and the Pandemic join Ellen Halliday to talk about the millions of Britons facing deep poverty.
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Why do we talk about sentience and artificial intelligence? And why do we constantly compare the robots we build to human beings? Science writer Philip Ball and philosopher Julian Baggini join Sameer Rahim to discuss the new frontiers in artificial intelligence—including a project from DeepMind predicting the shape of every protein known to science—and what they mean for us.
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"Summer is a sentimental education. A portal to feelings that, once experienced, are impossible to subdue," writes Sukhdev Sandhu in his recent piece for Prospect. On the podcast, Sameer Rahim and Emily Lawford join Sarah Collins to discuss the highbrow and lowbrow cultural highlights of the season, from Wagner's The Ring Cycle to Call Me by Your Name, from Romeo and Juliet to Love Island.
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What progressive policies could Kier Starmer adopt that would actually win him an election? For the latest issue of Prospect, contributing editor Tom Clark went on the hunt for twelve tried-and-tested ideas from around the world that could help the Labour Party win. He joins deputy editor Ellen Halliday and Labour peer and former No.10 advisor Stewart Wood to discuss whether these ideas—which include a wealth tax, an independent regulator for public probity and an earlier retirement age for manual worker—would be workable in Britain.
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From politicians to scientists, from rappers to tech entrepreneurs, the Prospect team has selected its 50 Top Thinkers for a turbulent world. Alex Dean and Sarah Collins join deputy editor Ellen Halliday to discuss the thinkers and their ideas, the nomination process and the purpose of the exercise in 2022.
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Leading human rights barrister Adam Wagner joins Richard Hermer, Murray Hunt and Helen Mountfield to dissect the rule of law under Boris Johnson. How has the law fared, what have been the points of concern and what should the new leader do to restore any damage done?
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Former Conservative attorney general Dominic Grieve and political writer Sam Freedman join the podcast to discuss the hopefuls vying for the position of conservative leader—and the implications of the contest for the party and the country.
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What does an eventful week in Westminster mean for our democracy? And will Johnson survive until September? Political journalist and pollster Peter Kellner joins Dr Alice Lily, senior researcher at the Institute for Government to discuss the end of Johnson's premiership, the Tory leadership contest and what the government will do next.
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Why do we still have such difficulty in grappling with the social force that shapes us most? Rapper and Orwell Prize-winning writer Darren McGarvey joins the Tom Clark to discuss his new state-of-the-nation book The Social Distance Between Us.
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Is the government trying to stuff the ballot box? Is the recently passed Elections Act a threat to democracy? Senior Editor and award-winning journalist Alex Dean joins the podcast to argue that the independence of the electoral commission is in jeopardy.
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Content note: This episode contains strong language and sexual references
Does the criminalisation or liberalisation of the sex industry best protect the women who work in it? And what are the consequences of sex work for women as a whole? Sex worker and writer Tilly Lawless and journalist and editor Jessica Abrahams join Alan Rusbridger to discuss the essays they wrote for the most recent issue of the magazine. Lawless argues in defence of her clients at the suburban brothel in Australia where she works, while Abrahams reports from Bristol where a proposal for a ban on strip clubs has divided opinion amongst feminist campaigners and dancers.
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Is this the end for Roe v Wade? And what are the implications both for women's rights and for the role of the US Supreme Court? Helen Mountfield and Richard Hermer from Matrix Chambers are joined by Melissa Murray, a professor of constitutional law and one of the leading academics in the US on reproductive rights.
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Are we beginning to get a sense of the cost of Brexit? Former Prospect Editor Tom Clark joins Alan Rusbridger to discuss what we know so far about how leaving the EU has affected trade, services and business investment.
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What happened in Guantanamo? Investigative journalist John Goetz tells the story of former Guantanamo prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi and the man who tortured him, Mr X. In a discussion with Alan Rusbridger, Goetz explains how he and his colleague Bastian Berbner tracked down Mr X seventeen years later, and what it taught them about the war on terror.
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Was Winston Churchill racist? Should any historical figure be above criticism? And what does it really mean to judge someone by the standards of their time? Leading academic and author Priyamvada Gopal joins Alan Rusbridger to discuss a new book by Tariq Ali
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Can Russia really disconnect from the rest of the digital world? What is China's Great Firewall? Leading academic, podcaster and all-round internet expert Ethan Zuckerman joins Alan Rusbridger to discuss how countries are creating, censoring and controlling their own digital spaces.
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This month, psychiatrist Rebecca Lawrence celebrates the soothing power of pets, while former England cricket captain Mike Brearley enjoys a play by Shomit Dutta about Beckett, Pinter and cricket. Both actor Sheila Hancock and Anglican priest Alice Goodman confront their fears about death, while Jason Thomas-Fournillier, an expert by experience in the asylum system, questions the morality of the government's recent Rwanda policy.
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For a recent Prospect event, Vicky Pryce, former joint head of the UK Government Economic Service, Andrew Simms, political economist and co-author of the Green New Deal and Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem science at the University of Oxford, discussed European energy security and climate change.
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Does cricket have a class problem? What do divisions in England's national summer sport reveal about our society? Former Telegraph chief sportswriter Paul Hayward joins Alan Rusbridger on the podcast.
In this special episode, former director of YouGov and leading political analyst Peter Kellner discusses the results of the local elections with Sonia Sodha.
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How did the women in Picasso's life suffer for his art? Should we rethink our canonisation of the painter's works? Writer and translator Miranda France joins deputy editor Sameer Rahim on the podcast.
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NEW PODCAST: Leading barristers Richard Hermer, Murray Hunt, and Helen Mountfield from Matrix Chambers place the ethical issues of the day under their expert legal microscope. In this episode they are joined by international law expert professor Andrew Clapham to discuss Russia, Ukraine and the rules of war.
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How did Putin transform from a seemingly rational man to the tyrant who invaded Ukraine? Former Nato chief and secretary of state for defence from 1997-1999, George Robertson, joins the podcast to discuss his experience negotiating with Putin, as well as the war in Ukraine and the implications for global security.
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Putin's grotesque invasion of Ukraine should not lead us to rehabilitate old, failed ideas about the international order, argues Samuel Moyn in his provocative cover story for Prospect. He joins editor Alan Rusbridger on the podcast.
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This month, actor and writer Sheila Hancock recovers from “a fall”, while sports journalist Emma John grieves the loss of her mother. Jason Thomas-Fournillier, an expert experience in the asylum system, looks back on the highs and lows of life in Trinidad, while Anglican Priest Alice Goodman prepares her Easter Sermon.
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In this special episode of the podcast recorded during our recent Prospect Talks event, we hear from Ukrainians affected by the war from both inside and outside the country. Guests include Olesya Khromeychuk, a writer and historian who is the director of the Ukrainian Institute in London; Sevgil Musaieva, a Ukrainian journalist from Crimea who is editor-in-chief of the independent online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda; and Andrii Zhupanyn, a Ukrainian MP who has been doing some remarkable work bringing much-needed aid into the country. Music was performed on the night by Ukrainian composer and violinist, Natalia Tsupryk.
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Many of us made rapid changes to our behaviour during the pandemic, so why—when facing a crisis as existential as climate change—are we dragging our heels? Economist, author and activist Andrew Simms joins Alan Rusbridger to discuss how fast transitions could save the planet.
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Ruth Deyermond, senior lecturer at the Department of War Studies at King's College London and the military analyst on Prospect’s Ukraine panel joins Sameer Rahim to explain why she thinks Putin has already lost the war in Ukraine.
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Is Stonehenge a giant's ring conjured by Merlin? Or a temple for Druid priests? Or a prehistoric spa? Prospect's managing editor Sameer Rahim joins Sarah Collins to discuss the many interpretations of this iconic monument over the centuries—and the secrets revealed by a new exhibition at the British Museum.
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Faced with Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the west initially summoned a new spirit of resolve. But—we ask former Talking Politics star Helen Thompson—could looming crunches over energy, economics and relations with China soon see the old alliance unravel?
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What did farmer Tom Martin discover when he hopped across the pond to the US? What music does Sheila Hancock choose to cheer herself up? Why does Jason Thomas-Fournillier hope that his GP doesn't listen to this episode? Our family of seven writers—including psychiatrist Rebecca Lawrence, Gen Zer Serena Smith and former England cricket captain Michael Brearley—update us on their adventures big and small on the Prospect Lives podcast.
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Leading global economist and FT columnist Megan Greene joins Alan Rusbridger to discuss the impact that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will have on the global economy.
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Former ambassador to NATO Peter Ricketts joins Alan Rusbridger to discuss Putin’s invasion of Ukraine—and what it means for Europe and the world.
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Does artificial intelligence entrench inequality? Are the algorithms that shape our lives sexist, racist and ableist? And should we be trying just to fix the computers, or also the society that trains them? Leading academic, podcaster and all-round internet expert Ethan Zuckerman joins Sarah Collins to address these questions.
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Drawing on over 40 years experience of crime reporting, expert journalist Duncan Campbell joins Alan Rusbridger to explore why the police are under attack from left, right and centre.
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Does the British constitution require that Boris Johnson goes? Famous for his “good chaps" theory of government, Britain’s most celebrated post-war historian, Peter Hennessy joins Tom Clark to provide a long view on this pressing question.
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Would Boris Johnson be a better prime minister if he had a different haircut? Do we take sport too seriously? Can drinking alcohol ever be good for us? Our family of seven writers—including actor and writer Sheila Hancock, asylum seeker Jason Thomas-Fournillier, and psychiatrist Rebecca Lawrence—ponder the big questions in this month's new episode of Prospect Lives.
Music Credit: “JUMBO” from the album “MUSIC FOR THE LEFT-HANDED” by Mick Bass & Tot Taylor
Is Boris Johnson a “Heineken” Prime Minister in a country that now has a hangover? Rachel Sylvester joins associate editor Sonia Sodha to tackle the question that's on everyone's mind: is it all over for Boris Johnson?
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Who was Richard Rorty and did he believe that truth exists? Writer, historian and philosopher Jonathan Rée joins Sameer Rahim to discuss the American philosopher who—although he died in 2007— still exerts a powerful influence on modern debates about politics and the nature of truth-telling today.
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Award winning journalist and former Guardian Health editor Sarah Boseley joins Alan Rusbridger to tackle a pressing question: why won’t Big Pharma share the patents for the coronavirus vaccines?
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Is cancel culture the crisis of our times, or just the unsubstantiated grumble of professional provocateurs? How do we balance supporting freedom of speech with protecting people from hate and harm? Orwell Prize winning journalist and author Fintan O’Toole explores the agonising balancing act required to protect public discourse from both censorship and toxicity.
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The team discusses the good, the bad and the ugly in the year that's passed and gives tentative predictions for the year ahead, as well as celebrating the best of Prospect journalism from 2021.
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Who is Geordie Greig and why has he been toppled as editor of Britain's most influential newspaper? What does this reshuffle mean for Boris Johnson? Why should we care about the Kremlinesque machinations at the top of the Daily Mail? Former FT Correspondent and Majorie Deane professor of financial journalism, Jane Martinson discusses her in depth reportage, with Prospect editor, Alan Rusbridger.
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What does life look like for an 89-year old actor or a psychiatrist who suffers with bipolar? What does it feel like to be asylum seeker, or an Anglican Priest, or a farmer? Prospect Lives is a brand new bonus podcast chronicling seven disparate experiences of life in modern Britain. Music credit Jumbo · Tot Taylor · Mick Bass
Is leadership all that matters in modern politics? Andrew Adonis thinks so. With his new collection of profiles of leaders from Gladstone to Modi, Lincoln to Blair and Churchill to Biden, Adonis draws on his own three decades of political experience to advance his controversial argument.
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When most people are decent, why do we get so many bad leaders, politicians and CEOs? Are despots made or born? After travelling the world and interviewing "the noblest to the dirtiest" leaders, renowned political scientist and podcaster Brian Klaas discusses his new book, Corruptible, with Tom Clark.
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Self-described futurist and bestselling author Martin Ford joins Tom Clark to talk about his new book Rule of the Robots and the good, the bad and the ugly about the artificial intelligence which will soon be deeply embedded in our lives.
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A year on from the dark winter of 2020, do we have Covid-19 under control? And what will the virus means for politics, economics and global health, for decades to come? Tom Clark is joined by leading science writer Philip Ball to tackle that most prescient question: how will the pandemic shape the future?
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Leading human rights barrister, author and Labour member of the House of Lords, Helena Kennedy joins Tom Clark and Alex Dean to discuss a rather terrifying question — does the government respect the rule of law? In a wide-ranging conversation, the trio discuss judicial review, human rights and the perils of populism.
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This week managing editor Sameer Rahim is joined by war correspondent and author Janine di Giovanni to discuss the plight of Christianty in the Middle East. Christians have lived in the region for 2,000 years—but Giovanni thinks that modern war, religious persecution and economic uncertainty put their future under threat.
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Was King George III really such a bad king? Leading historian Andrew Roberts doesn't think so. He joins Andrew Adonis and Tom Clark to discuss his new book George III, the Life and Reign of Britain's Most Misunderstood Monarch, to argue that King George was in fact a competent leader, despite his struggle with mental illness.
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Will robots rule the world? Will fully autonomous weapons destroy the planet? Will artificial intelligence take my job? Silicon valley entrepreneur and self-described futurist Martin Ford joins Tom Clark to answer the big questions about the technology that shapes not only our smartphones, but our politics, economies and lives.
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Ahead of COP26 in Glasgow next month, we speak to environmental correspondent Fiona Harvey on what it will take to reach a crucial deal in the next step towards tackling the climate crisis. Having covered 14 of the last 16 COP summits, Fiona shares some of her key insights into climate diplomacy and how often success falls on the work of the host nation’s leadership. Which of course begs the question: is our current leader, Boris Johnson, up to the task?
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Leading legal-aid lawyer David Renton joins the Prospect Interview to talk about the view from the frontline of the housing crisis. As a barrister in courtrooms both physical and virtual during the pandemic, while we hunkered down in our homes, David was fighting stop a panoply of clients from losing theirs. Arguing that our children need housing justice now, not money for a deposit, Renton has big and sometimes radical ideas about reforming housing policy in the UK and on ensuring that everyone has access to justice.
Seasoned political broadcaster Steve Richards joins Tom Clark to talk about the prime minsters that never were. From Roy Jenkins to Michael Heseltine, Richards charts the journeys of the pretenders that never made it to the top spot, arguing that for all the feverish speculation in the press, rivals to prime ministers rarely prevail.
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Gillian Tett, editor at large at the Financial Times and author of a new book Anthro-Vision, joins Tom Clark to explain how undercover anthropology helped her to predict the financial crash. Applying an anthropological lens to life has enabled Tett to spot the patterns that others miss, like the unexpected similarities shared by wedding rituals in Tajikistan and banking conferences in the US.
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Charlotte Higgins, prize-winning author and the Guardian's chief culture writer, joins Sameer Rahim talk about her book, Greek Myths: A New Retelling. Their conversation tackles the big questions. Did the Greeks believe in their Gods? Does classics have a class problem? And did Medea really kill her children?
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Who is Ben Houchen and how did he help the Tories topple the red wall? Sebastian Payne, Whitehall Editor at the Financial Times joins the podcast to discuss the Tees Valley mayor that Boris Johnson is reportedly "obsessed" with, as well as the wider themes in his new book Broken Heartlands.
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What does it mean to be a public intellectual in 2021? In this episode Tom Clark, Sameer Rahim and Philip Ball discuss the work of Prospect’s Top Thinker of 2021, Palestinian embryologist Jacob Hanna, as well other notable names including Priyamvada Gopal, Mahmood Mandani and Carlo Rovelli.
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Bestselling author and renegade economist Richard H Thaler joins the Prospect Interview to talk about the book that made him famous, Nudge. So influential that the UK Cabinet office even created a dedicated Nudge Unit, the groundbreaking book–first published in 2008–is back in a final, revised edition.
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On this week’s podcast we’re joined by Prospect’s own contributing editor, Andrew Adonis, who discusses the class clown who became one of our most dominant prime ministers, Boris Johnson. How did he get to where he is today? In explaining the “Johnson phenomenon,” Andrew argues that we have to look back at the school that made him as well as many other prime ministers: Eton College.
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On this week’s episode we speak to archaeologist and author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, Rebecca Wragg Sykes. She joins managing editor Sameer Rahim to discuss the fascinating story of our closest cousins, the Neanderthals: how they might have lived, whether they had imagination—and just how much of our perceptions of them has changed in the 150 years since we first discovered their fossils.
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On this week’s episode, writer, philosopher and Oxford don Amia Srinivasan joins us to talk about the ideas explored in her latest essay collection, The Right to Sex. From male entitlement to the politics of desire, Amia tells us why sex is a topic in need of a more philosophical interrogation.
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Ed Miliband joins the Prospect Interview to discuss how to fix some of our most pressing policy issues, which he explores in his new book Go Big: How to Fix Our World. He joins editor Tom Clark to discuss Vienna’s social housing revolution, why the UK needs to embrace decentralisation, and why we shouldn’t count out the Labour Party for the next general election.
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The Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen joins the Prospect Interview to discuss economics, globalisation and identity in his new memoir Home in the World. Editor Tom Clark talks to Amartya about watching famous historians Hugh Trevor-Roper and Eric Hobsbawm go head to head at Cambridge, the turmoil in Narendra Modi’s India, and the future of neoliberalism.
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Throughout its history, England was regularly falling to foreign takeovers and perennially divided—it was a nation that never was. Author of The Shortest History of England James Hawes joins the Prospect Interview to discuss the chaotic, mixed history of England and the thorny question of English identity. James discusses English nationalism in the wake of the 2020 Euros, the enduring power of southern elites, and the great construct that is Great Britain.
You can read James's essay here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-england-delusion-scotland-united-kingdom-history
American historian Carol Anderson joins the Prospect Interview to discuss the secret history of America’s much-debated Second Amendment. The amendment, enshrined in the country’s bill of rights, asserts the right of “well-regulated militias” to “keep and bear arms.” Carol, whose previous book White Rage was deemed essential reading during Donald Trump’s America, illuminates the history and impact of the Second Amendment, and the many ways it has been designed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable.
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In this month’s issue of Prospect, we have two essays approaching the thorny yet increasingly unignorable question of referendums: are they really democratic? Author and former Labour MP Chris Mullin, in his cover story on the rise of nationalism under Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, warns that we may soon begin to have referendums on everything—including the return of the death penalty. Meanwhile political economist Helen Thompson argues that our whole constitution has, and always did, rest on popular consent—and referendums are inevitably needed when party politics fail.
Chris and Helen join editor Tom Clark to talk about the history and future of referendums in Britain, whether Brexit could have been avoided entirely, and whether we will soon see an independent Scotland.
Chris Mullin's essay here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/hartlepool-hangman-conservative-party-nationalism-death-penalty
Helen Thompson's essay here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/consent-british-constitution-referendums-brexit-europe
Journalist Christian Davies joins the Prospect Interview to discuss Poland's authoritarian turn—and what it could mean for Europe as a whole. In the latest issue of Prospect, out now on newsstands and online, Christian writes an essay about the nostalgic nationalists of the ultra-conservative Law and Justice Party, which is tightening its grip on the country which—not long ago—the west viewed as the very model of a new liberal democracy. He warns this could eventually have one consequence no-one for esaw—a drift towards the orbit of Russia.
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Novelist Natasha Brown joins the Prospect Interview to talk about writing contemporary Britain and the fragmented self in her debut, Assembly. The novel follows a Black British woman as she navigates her high-powered job in London’s financial world, faces a medical emergency, and prepares to go to her boyfriend’s family party at their lavish countryside estate. Natasha talks to assistant editor Rebecca Liu about bringing finance into fiction, writing the inner lives of the wealthy, and what fiction can offer a nation currently caught in endless culture wars.
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Ever since emerging in the late 17th century, the Tories have restlessly reinvented themselves, shamelessly shape-shifted and shown a Lazarus-like ability to rise from political death. David Cameron talked about a “big society” while Theresa May railed against “burning injustices.” So what—if anything—does the party under Boris Johnson believe in? Rachel Sylvester joins the Prospect Interview to talk about the latest reinvention of the Conservatives, why Boris Johnson may become a victim of his own success, and the PM’s journalist past.
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From Clement Attlee to Margaret Thatcher, several movers and shakers have entered government with plans to fundamentally change how the British economy is run. But have they ever truly succeeded? In this week’s podcast Tom Clark welcomes the Economist‘s Duncan Weldon, who argues that Britain’s “hands off” approach to the economy is so ingrained it’s influenced everyone, from the Treasury to trade unions.
You can read Duncan’s essay here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/condemned-to-be-liberal-why-britain-cant-easily-break-with-economic-laissez-faire
Rush Limbaugh and his Fox News descendants softened up America for Donald Trump. Could the British shock jock do the same for political life in the UK? Journalist Zoe Williams joins Tom Clark to discuss why the media-savvy renegade took off in early 2000s America, what the “war on woke” really misses, and why we should all be concerned about the future of the BBC.
You can read Zoe’s essay here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/uk-shock-jock-rush-limbaugh-radio-lbc-farage
Sameer Rahim joins professor David Herman for a discussion on the life and work of the public intellectual Edward Said, who is the subject of a new biography, Places of Mind, by Timothy Brennan. Sameer, who wrote about the limitations of the thinker in our most recent issue of Prospect, joins David, a former student of Said’s, to discuss what Said got right, and wrong, about orientalism, his friendship with Salman Rushdie, and what Said would have made of the Israel – Palestine conflict today.
You can read Sameer’s essay here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/disorientated-the-confusions-of-edward-said
As Britain slowly opens up—and cinemas, galleries, and concert halls finally return—arts and books editor Sameer Rahim talks to Nicholas Kenyon, managing director at the Barbican, about the struggles faced by Britain’s artists over the past year, and why he’s looking forward to opening the Barbican’s doors. Nicholas, who was previously director of the BBC Proms and music critic for the New Yorker and the Observer, also talks about the changing face of classical music, how the music world will be affected by Brexit, and writing his new book The Life of Music: New Adventures in the Western Classical Tradition.
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In this special episode of the Prospect Interview, listen to audio from the magazine’s latest Editor’s Club call with Andrew Adonis on writing political biography, and what makes a good leader. Andrew Adonis joins editor Tom Clark to discuss his upcoming book on Tony Blair, the difference between campaigning and governing, and why extroverts make for good political leaders.
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Is it possible to govern well in the age of populism? That was the question our three guests took on when entering this year’s Bennett Prospect Public Policy essay contest—and they impressed the judges with their novel ideas. Winner Callum Watts and runners-up Nina Foster and Oliver Large join the Prospect Interview this week to discuss just what we mean when we talk about populism, how to make citizen’s assemblies work, and whether children should be given the right to vote.
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India’s Covid-19 crisis has seriously shaken national confidence in prime minister Narendra Modi—but will it unseat him? Prospect contributor Andrew Adonis and Cambridge historian Shruti Kapila join the Prospect Interview to talk about the swift rise of Modi, what differentiates him from other populist leaders, and what enabled India’s Covid-19 disaster.
You can read Andrew Adonis’s profile of Narendra Modi here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/narendra-modi-is-everything-apart-from-what-he-seems
Geopolitics professor Klaus Dodds and journalist Rachel Halliburton join the Prospect Interview to give the inside view on the new geopolitical battle of the decade: the race for the Arctic. As temperatures rise, new shipping routes are opening up in the ice—and the big nations are waiting. Klaus and Rachel wrote an essay on the new very Cold War in this month’s issue of Prospect and what that means for the future of our planet
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The celebrated author Philip Roth was obsessed with chasing the exceptional in both his life and work. Author and critic Jon Day joins the Prospect Interview to discuss new biographies of the author of American Pastoral and Portnoy’s Complaint. He talks to arts and books editor Sameer Rahim about why Roth marks the end of the grand literary celebrity, and how his novels precipitated the rise of “cancel culture.”
You can read Jon Day’s essay on Philip Roth here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/philip-roths-ruthless-intimacy-biography-review
A new biography of Stephen Hawking argues that the celebrated scientist was shamelessly self-promoting and his reputation overrated. Philip Ball joins the Prospect Interview to discuss Charles Seife’s Hawking Hawking: The Making of a Scientific Celebrity and talks to arts and books editor Sameer Rahim about humanising a scientific deity, and why it was that Hawking, out of all of his other similarly accomplished peers, became a household name.
You can read Philip Ball’s review of Hawking Hawking here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/stephen-hawking-celebrity-physicist-flaws
In his cover story for the new issue of Prospect, human rights lawyer Adam Wagner writes about the troubling ways in which laws have been passed over the last year, and how they pose a threat to Britain’s freedom. Lockdown has, of course, helped bring the Covid-19 under control—but what about cases such as the government’s crackdown on the Sarah Everard vigils and its detention of children? Adam talks to Tom Clark about the troubling attack on Britain’s human rights, the changing role of the police, and what the courts should do next.
You can read Adam Wagner’s piece, “Taking liberties”, here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/adam-wagner-covid-lockdown-law-democracy-essay
While homeschooling her eight-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son during lockdown, Eliane Glaser was shocked to discover what they got up to at school in pre-pandemic times. Her children were asked to explain the meaning of “fronted adverbials” and “determiners”; they filled in “success criteria”; their maths worksheets asked them to “use inverse relationships to solve problems.” These are not questions you would ask of an adult—let alone a young child. So what happened, and who’s to blame for the absurdities of England’s robot curriculum? Eliane joins the Prospect podcast to talk about the many sides of homeschooling, what she learned when speaking to teachers for the piece, and what needs to be done for the curriculum to change.
You can read Eliane’s piece, “Homeschooling has revealed the absurdities of England’s national curriculum”, here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/homeschooling-parents-lockdown-national-curriculum-uk-eliane-glaser
Scotland is currently seeing a radical experiment in land ownership. Currently, fewer than 500 individuals are estimated to own more than half of the nation—but there’s increasing drive to give everyone a stake in the ground beneath their feet. David McAllister joins the Prospect Interview to discuss Scotland’s land revolution, and the lessons on wealth, property, and community it holds everywhere.
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Journalist Barbara Speed joins the Prospect podcast to talk about the changing fortunes of one of the internet's most-visited websites: Wikipedia. Depending on who you speak to, Wikipedia is either a misinformation free-for-all overseen by self-selecting pedants or, as Barbara has it in her latest article, “the last redoubt of the idealism of the early World Wide Web.” Barbara joins assistant editor Rebecca Liu to discuss the past and future of this seemingly contradictory corner of the internet—and whether or not, in this new age of “alternative facts,” it might just be our unlikely saviour.
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As the battle between Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon takes over the headlines, the BBC’s Andrew Marr assumes a longer view and addresses what will soon be the biggest question facing the nation: will it continue to exist? In the new issue of Prospect, out this week, Andrew looks at the historic roots of the frailty of the Union, which may well cause potentially perverse consequences today. He joins editor Tom Clark to talk about the history of the Scottish independence movement, what he makes of the battle within the SNP, and whether he sees any resolution to the ongoing battle between London and Holyrood.
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Journalist Samira Shackle joins the Prospect podcast to discuss life and death in modern Karachi. In her new book, Karachi Vice, Samira tells the story of the fast-changing place through the eyes of locals, including a journalist with a taste for risky scoops and an ambulance driver who sees tragedy daily. Samira joins arts and books editor Sameer Rahim, to talk about her own personal ties to Karachi, confronting British stereotypes of Pakistan, and where this compelling and fast-changing city goes next.
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Citizen journalist Eliot Higgins joins the Prospect Interview this week to discuss the many groundbreaking investigations made by Bellingcat, his open-source investigative journalism website. Eliot first got started as a hobbyist in 2011, investigating the transport and use of weapons in the Syrian civil war while watching YouTube videos from home. Now, Bellingcat has made headline-grabbing discoveries surrounding the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 and the Yemeni Civil War. Eliot joins arts and books editor Sameer Rahim to talk about citizen journalism, how Bellingcat really works, and the troubling rise of internet conspiracies.
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Last month, the UK had the highest Covid-19 death rate in the world with 113,000 deaths to date. It’s difficult to remember now, but back when the nation first locked down last March, experts warned that keeping the national death toll under 25,000 would be a good result. Editor Tom Clark is joined by science writer Philip Ball and columnist Gaby Hinsliff to discuss why the UK government got the virus so wrong—and what to expect now that the vaccine has been rolled out.
You can read our cover story, the unofficial Covid-19 inquiry, online here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/covid-19-the-unofficial-uk-inquiry-coronavirus-nhs
Political theorist and former Ed Miliband speechwriter Marc Stears joins the Prospect Interview to talk about what 20th century British artists George Orwell, Barbara Jones, and Dylan Thomas can teach us about building bridges in our divided times today. His new book, Out of the Ordinary: How Everyday Life Inspired a Nation and How It Can Again, follows the lives of these writers and artists, examining how they helped rebuild society during a century marked by war, tumult and revolution. The most exciting creative work going on today, Marc continues, occurs not in our lauded newspapers or celebrated exhibitions—but rather in scenes of ordinary life far from the limelight.
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What happens to vast, sprawling landscapes when the humans who live there suddenly leave? Cal Flyn set about to answer that question in her new book, Islands of Abandonment, visiting the forests of Chernobyl, the post-industrial bings of Scotland and abandoned factories in New Jersey to document the new forms of wildlife that have cropped up since. She joins the Prospect Interview to talk about theories of succession, what post-Soviet farmland has to do with global warming, and why she chose to write a book on nature shot through with hope.
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Prospect contributor Andrew Adonis and biographer Evan Osnos join the Prospect Interview to discuss the life and times of the incoming US President. They talk about Biden’s early life—and personal tragedies—and also what to expect from his presidency. Andrew profiled Joe Biden in the upcoming issue of Prospect magazine, and Evan is author of Joe Biden: American Dreamer.
You can read Andrew's profile of Biden here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/can-joe-biden-save-america-inauguration-donald-trump
Booker Prize-winning author George Saunders joins the Prospect Interview to discuss his experiences teaching the Russian short story and his new book, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. What begins as a homage to the technical literary skill of Chekhov, Gogol, and Tolstoy soon becomes a broader reflection on the purpose of fiction, and the meaning of life. Saunders joins arts and books editor Sameer Rahim and talks about how he changed his mind on Chekhov, getting in the head of a Trump supporter, and the art of getting published.
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Who gets to write history—and which narratives win out? Historian and writer Stella Dadzie joins the Prospect Interview to discuss writing the lives of enslaved women in the Caribbean. She talks about the blind spots of history taught in British schools, the importance of foregrounding agency and resistance, and what she makes of the evolving conversation on race and empire in Britain.
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Over a year ago now in December, scientists first discovered a new virus that caused pneumonia-like symptoms. The rest is history. Science writer Phil Ball joins the Prospect Interview to discuss past lessons from the pandemic in 2020—which countries did well, and which failed—and how the vaccine will change the new normality in 2021.
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His teachings have been transmitted, interpreted, and some may say misappropriated, for centuries. But what did Jesus Christ really believe? Now, as organised religion declines in popularity, does he have anything to teach our secular age? Author Nick Spencer, who recently wrote an essay on the secularisation of Jesus, joins the Prospect Interview to discuss the many lives of Jesus Christ.
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When the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ascended to power in 2017, he was hailed among the west as a liberal reformer, and was welcomed by Hollywood celebrities and world leaders alike. But what’s happened to Saudi Arabia’s supposedly radical programme of reform? Saudi expert Madawi al-Rasheed joins the Prospect Interview and takes us behind the power struggles and social debates gripping the country.
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When the nation headed to the polls for the EU referendum in 2016, the result was almost split down the middle. So how come the Brexit deal that's coming will not be the moderate one of a 48-52 nation, but a hard exit? Leading think tankers Anand Menon and Jill Rutter join the Prospect Interview to talk about the long four years since June 2016, and who is to really to blame for killing soft Brexit.
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Booker Prize-winning author Douglas Stuart joins the Prospect Interview to discuss writing his powerful novel, Shuggie Bain, which tells the story of a young boy growing up in working-class Glasgow during the 80s. Douglas talks to Arts and Books editor Sameer Rahim—who sat on this year’s Booker judging panel and was captivated by Shuggie Bain—about the importance of diversity in literature, his non-chronological way of writing, and what he made of the other shortlisted novels.
What has the attention economy done to our attention spans—and our minds? Writer and academic Julia Bell joins the Prospect Interview to discuss her latest book, Radical Attention, an essay on the many hidden, and not-so-hidden, costs of today’s technological systems. In an age of infinite distraction, Julia makes a case for the importance of radical attention: a sharp, focused, and generous way of being in the world, which valorises nuanced, difficult thought.
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Are we seeing a return to normality? CNN journalist and political commentator Fareed Zakaria joins the Prospect Interview to talk about Joe Biden’s victory, what will happen to populism, and how Covid-19 has changed both America and the world. He walks us through what America feels like after the election, and also lessons from his new book, Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World.
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Who will win? Author and commentator Diane Roberts joins the Prospect Interview and gives a quick summary of the race so far, including which states to look out for. Plus: what have four years of Trump done to public trust in institutions?
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How did America become the world’s predominant power? Historian Stephen Wertheim joins the Prospect podcast this week to discuss the short history of America as the world’s policeman, which he outlines in his new book, Tomorrow the World. He also talks about what might happen next—and what a foreign policy under Joe Biden might look like.
Stephen is Deputy Director of Research and Policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and is one of Prospect’s Top 50 Thinkers for 2020. Tomorrow the Worldis published by Harvard University Press.
Think Jacques Derrida was an inscrutable fraud? Peter Salmon, biographer and recent author of An Event, Perhaps, implores you to think again. Peter joins the Prospect Interview to talk about the life and work of the controversial, and unavoidable, philosopher, and unpicks some of the myths surrounding his philosophy.
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Journalist and author Owen Jones joins the Prospect Interview to talk about his new book, This Land. Editor Tom Clark talks to Owen about the highs and lows of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, what he really thinks of the line between campaigning and journalism, and whether it’s just doom and gloom for Britain’s left going forward.
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The Times journalist Rachel Sylvester joins the Prospect Interview to get us up to date about the state of Brexit talks, and introduce the man behind Britain’s negotiating table, David Frost. Is a hard Brexit inevitable, and what can Frost’s little-known background reveal about where Britain stands with the EU?
You can read Rachel’s profile of David Frost here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/profile-who-is-david-frost-brexit-negotiator-cliff-edge
Writer and broadcaster Eliane Glaser joins the Prospect Interview to make a defense of what she deems “progressive elitism.” In the era of populism, the trust in institutions and experts has plummeted within the left and right alike. Eliane makes the case for excellence in these divided times—and tells us why restoring standards may in fact restore popular democracy.
Elitism: A Progressive Defense is published by Biteback
Writer Robert Macfarlane joins the Prospect Interview to discuss writing the Earth’s underworld in his new book, Underland: A Deep Time Journey. MacFarlane talks to our arts and books editor Sameer Rahim about exploring the deepest recesses of the world, the mysteries of the anthropocene, and why he’s rejecting the term “nature writer.”
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Avni Doshi’s Booker Prize-shortlisted debut novel, Burnt Sugar, follows an artist in Pune, India, whose mother suddenly gets diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The revelation unravels difficult family histories, uncovering the secrets binding mother and daughter. Avni joins the Prospect Interview to discuss writing the novel—and why it took seven years—and what it’s been like living through the Booker Prize media blitz.
Film director Sarah Gavron and writer Theresa Ikoko join this week’s Prospect Interview to discuss their new film, Rocks, a celebratory ode to teenage life in today’s London. Rocks follows the story of a teenage girl—nicknamed Rocks—and the fast friendships she develops at her school. The film was made under quite unusual circumstances: casting was done across schools in London, involving nearly 1500 students, before finding the film’s first-time actors, who then workshopped with the creative team for a year to finalise a script. Sarah and Theresa take us behind the making of Rocks, writing the lives of today’s teenagers, and what it’s like to release a film during a pandemic.
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The pandemic has shattered economies all over the globe. What can be done about it? Historian Adam Tooze joins the Prospect Interview to talk about the Covid-19 economic crisis. He discusses how the impending recession compares to past crises, what policies ought to be taken, and whether we are really seeing the end of neoliberalism.
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In 1990, when he was just nine years old, Prospect’s Sameer Rahim joined his parents and sister on a holiday to Iraq. What was first a family trip quickly turned into an international diplomatic fiasco. As Saddam Hussein was then facing international condemnation for the Kuwait War, Sameer and his family were taken as so-called “human-shield hostages”: Britons kept within Iraq as bargaining chips. In a personal essay for the current issue of Prospect, Sameer remembers his time cooped up in a Baghdad hotel—and reflects on what the experience has taught him about the many sides of national identity.
You can read Sameer’s essay, I was Saddam’s prisoner, here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/i-was-saddams-prisoner
They’ve taken over our cinemas screens (when cinemas were still open)—but where did the superheroes who now dominate our screens come from? Writer and Spectator literary editor Sam Leith joins the Prospect Interview to discuss the history of Marvel Comics and its legendary creative leader, Stan Lee. Lee’s creations—which include Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, and the Black Panther—aren’t just crime-fighting men in tights, Leith says. They also speak to the social concerns of Lee’s time, and have made a remarkable American pantheon.
You can read Sam’s essay on Stan Lee and the Marvel Comics universe here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/stan-lee-marvel-dc-comic-books-american-pantheon
Previously confined to the fringes, discussion of white identity has reached a fever pitch in the mainstream in the past few years. In the current issue of Prospect, out now on newsstands, Sarah Churchwell and Kenan Malik reflect on the history of white identity across both sides of the Atlantic. They join this week’s Prospect Interview to talk about Anglo-Saxonism, the rise of the “white working class,” and the presidency of Donald Trump.
Sarah Churchwell’s “White Lies Matter”: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/white-lies-matter-history-blm-black-lives-matter-donald-trump-united-states-statues-colston-slavery
Kenan Malik “The Rise of White Identity”: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/white-identity-politics-black-lives-matter-race-kenan-malik
Why do some countries succeed in confronting their pasts, and others fail? Authors Ivan Krastev and Leonard Bernardo join the Prospect Interview this week to discuss a question on many people’s minds this summer: how do nations come to terms with the historical crimes they’ve committed? Ivan and Leonard write an essay on the (unsuccessful) Russian case in this month’s issue of Prospect, in which they trace the curious recent rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin in recent years. What does it take for a country to face up to its history—and what do they make about Britain’s ongoing debate on the statue of Winston Churchill?
You can read Ivan and Leonard’s essay here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/how-can-nations-atone-for-their-sins-germany-russia-nazism-soviet-union
One of the most influential statesmen of the 20th century has since been forgotten by history. Why is that? Andrew Adonis joins the Prospect Interview to discuss the life and work of Ernest Bevin, 20th century trade union leader and former Minister of Labour and Foreign Secretary. Bevin, who Adonis calls “Labour’s Churchill” has much to teach the Labour Party about where it goes today.
You can read Prospect’s review of Ernest Bevin: Labour’s Churchill here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/ernest-bevin-working-class-hero-andrew-adonis-book-review
Frances Cha had been a journalist based in Seoul for several years, reporting on the culture and trends in South Korea’s megacity for CNN. Then, she decided to explore all she learned in fiction, writing her novel If I Had Your Face. Her debut explores the lives of four women living in Seoul, and takes a forensic look at the many challenges faced by millennials living in the ever-changing city today. She joins the Prospect Interview to talk about making the leap from reporting to fiction, uncovering a hidden side of South Korea, and why she hopes readers might take from her novel.
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It’s that time of year again. Today, Prospect releases its annual list of top 50 thinkers for our times. The editorial team talks through what it was like making the list, and how they went about finding the intellectuals, artists, scientists and writers who have come to define our time.
You can read the list of top 50 thinkers, and vote for your own favourite (plus tell us who we missed) here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-worlds-top-50-thinkers-2020
What’s behind the disproportionate number of Covid-19 ethnic minority deaths? Science writer Angela Saini—most recently author of Superior: The Return of Race Science—joins the Prospect Interview to talk about the intersection between medicine and race, and why she’s surprised that even the respectable scientific community has fallen so easily into pseudo-science.
You can read Angela’s essay on the racial politics of Covid-19 here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-covid-race-riddle-defies-skin-deep-simplicities-angela-saini-racism-virus-spread
Feminism may be becoming increasingly mainstream, but it’s undeniable that women continue to do the lion’s share of housework and child-rearing at home. Historian Emma Lundin joins the Prospect Interview to talk about modern motherhood today, and reflects on the obstacles preventing gender equality, now enshrined in law in theory, from becoming the norm in reality.
You can read Emma’s essay on working motherhood here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/mind-the-gender-gap-why-its-time-for-an-equality-revolution-in-parenting
American political commentator and Atlantic senior editor David Frum joins the Prospect Interview this week to discuss the presidency of Donald Trump, whose potential legacy he writes about in his new book, Trumpocalypse: Restoring American democracy. Frum talks to editor Tom Clark about his journey from George W. Bush speechwriter to one of the most high-profile conservative critics of the latest president, whether he thinks Joe Biden has a chance beating Trump this November, and how he would make a start patching together the deep inequalities and anger that plague the US.
CBD oils, meditation apps, and memory foam mattresses—our obsession with getting the perfect night’s sleep is stronger than ever. But is the drive to get more shut-eye actually making us more exhausted? Journalist Barbara Speed wrote an essay for Prospect going behind the global sleep industry, and unpacks the false science and misguided assumptions that are stopping us from getting the proper rest we need.
She joins outgoing deputy editor Steve Bloomfield to talk about why she was drawn to going behind the sleep industry, why she’s no longer bothered about getting in her nightly eight hours, and the tech industry’s insidious war on our waking brains.
You can read Barbara’s essay on sleep here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/cant-sleep-lockdown-quarantine-problems-why-coronavirus-nightmares-help
Biographer and academic Ray Monk joins the Prospect Interview this week to discuss the life and work of GE Moore, a once-great Cambridge philosopher who has since disappeared from history. Why was it that Moore was so revered at his time, drawing admiration from the likes of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell? And why is it that since then, he’s been largely forgotten?
You can read Ray Monk’s essay on GE Moore here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/ge-moore-philosophy-books-analytic-ray-monk-biography
Academic and author of This is Shakespeare Emma Smith joins the Prospect Interview this week to discuss the bard’s much gossiped about life under the plague. While many of us may have come across reminders that Shakespeare spun out King Lear while under lockdown centuries ago, Emma says that there’s another plague-era play of his that shows another side of historic London life—the comic, and unapologetically raunchy, Venus and Adonis.
Emma’s article on Venus and Adonis is available here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/shakespeares-answer-to-the-plague-more-sex-and-comedy
Dutch historian and commentator Rutger Bregman joins the Prospect Interview this week to discuss his new book, Humankind: A Hopeful History. It’s a book with an optimistic thesis at its heart: that people are—despite all the doom-mongering, disasters, and political conflicts that rage on in our headlines—at their core, decent and well-intentioned. Arts and Books editor Sameer Rahim talks to Rutger about making a case for hope in the time of Covid, what makes people embrace hate, division and prejudice—and how he went about writing his viral story of the real-life Lord of the Flies.
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Philosopher Clare Carlisle joins the Prospect Interview to talk about the 19th century novelist George Eliot. Celebrated as the author of Middlemarch and Silas Marner, Eliot was also an enthusiastic philosopher who notably translated the first English translation of Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics. Clare talks to arts and books editor Sameer Rahim about George Eliot’s philosophy, the novelist’s fondness for Spinoza, and the often fluid line between literature and philosophy.
You can read Clare’s essay on George Eliot here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/george-eliot-philosophy-spinoza-clare-carlisle
In this week’s special edition of the Prospect Interview, we share exclusive audio from our first ever webinar for subscribers, held last Friday. In it, our most recent contributors—Oxford historian Margaret MacMillan; professor of global economic governance Ngaire Woods, and Harvard economist Dani Rodrik share their thoughts on what a post-Covid world will look like. These distinguished academics wrote essays in the latest issue of Prospect, all addressing, from different angles, the big question: what sort of universe will emerge out of the pandemic?
You can read their essays online here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/issues/288
As the world slows down, many of us are thinking—what comes next? Oxford geographer Danny Dorling joins the Prospect Interview to discuss what a world after growth might look like. His latest book, Slowdown: The end of the great acceleration–and why it’s good for the planet, the economy, and our lives was written long before Covid-19 forced much of the world to stop, but many of his reflections on what a post-growth society might look like feel ever more relevant today.
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Infectious disease expert Adam Kucharski didn’t know that the world was going to be overtaken by a virus when he wrote his new book, The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread – and Why They Stop. But today, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine professor has a schedule filled with meetings about the progression of Covid-19—and how best to curb it. Arts and books editor Sameer Rahim talks to Adam about what it’s been like researching the disease, which countries have handled the outbreak best, and what to expect next.
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Human rights lawyer and award-winning author Philippe Sands joins the Prospect Interview to talk about his new book, The Ratline: Love, Lies, and Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive. The author of bestselling history memoir East West Street discusses his new book, which traces the real-life disappearance of a Nazi leader and his wife. He talks to deputy editor Steve Bloomfield about what drew him to this curious family history, what 20th century atrocities can teach us today, and—as a human rights lawyer—what concerns him about life under lockdown.
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Writer Thomas Chatterton Williams joins the Prospect Interview this week to talk about his curious approach to race in America. His new memoir, Self Portrait in Black and White, explores his own background as a mixed-race child of a black father and white mother growing up in New Jersey. He talks to our Arts and Books editor Sameer Rahim about why he sometimes calls himself “ex-Black”, how he feels about calls for race reparations, and whether he really thinks, in divided political times, one might really transcend race.
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Novelist Colum McCann joins the Prospect Interview this week to discuss his new bestseller, Apeirogon, a fictional story based on the real-life friendship between an Israeli and a Palestinian. He talks to our Arts and Books editor about how he went about researching the novel, learning from the Northern Ireland peace process, and why, in spite of everything, he still has hope.
Colum McCann’s Apeirogon is published by Bloomsbury: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/apeirogon-9781526607874/
Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman joins the Prospect podcast to talk about what he calls “zombie economics”: the right-wing free market economic orthodoxy that he believes persists past its sell-by date. He also reflects on America’s 2020 election, whether he misjudged Obama, and if he has faith in the future of economics.
Paul Krugman’s Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future, is published by W. W. Norton: https://www.wwnorton.co.uk/books/9781324005018-arguing-with-zombies
Articles discussed in the introduction:
Paul Krugman on the coronavirus and climate change: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/opinion/coronavirus-trump-response.html
David Runciman on Keynesians and the lockdown: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n07/david-runciman/too-early-or-too-late
Tom Clark on coronavirus’s market aftershocks: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/locking-down-leaders-damned-whatever-they-do-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-quarantine-social-distancing-economy-recession
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Journalist Kim Ghattas joins the Prospect Interview to explain the political conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran—where did it come from, and how has it fundamentally transformed the region? She also gives her perspectives on lessons from the Arab Spring, and why her own background growing up in Lebanon means she’s able to tell stories that challenge popular Western narratives.
Kim’s book, Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Rivalry that Unravelled the Middle East, is published with Wildfire: https://www.headline.co.uk/titles/kim-ghattas/black-wave/9781472271112/
Early modern historian and polyglot John Gallagher joins the Prospect Interview this week to talk about language learning in Britain from the 16th century to today. What was it like when the English language was, in the words of one early modern writer, useless anywhere past Devon? And why do Brits today perform so poorly on language acquisition, especially against their continental peers?
John’s book, Learning Languages in Early Modern England, is published by Oxford University Press.
Plus: Stephanie Boland and Steve Bloomfield on language learning in the time of coronavirus lockdown
His previous book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, became a worldwide sensation. Now the French economist is back with another sweeping history of inequality and capitalism: Capital and Ideology. Thomas joins the Prospect Interview this week to talk about what’s changed in the world—and his own life—since his tome on inequality topped the bestselling charts in 2014. He tells us his thoughts on Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and what he thinks will happen with Brexit, and re-evaluates Labour’s 2017 and 2019 elections and the future of Macron’s revolution. And why, despite everything, he has a shred of optimism about the future of the fight against inequality.
You can read Tom’s essay on Thomas Piketty’s capital ideas, past and present, here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/thomas-pikettys-capital-idea-economics-history-inequality-krugman-interview-review
From the warriors who inspired the Amazons to Joan of Arc, women have served in the military for centuries—some in disguise. Historian and academic Julie Wheelwright joins the Prospect Interview to talk about the long history of women in the military forces and what drew them to take up arms—as well as a little-known fact about the historic significance of London’s Deptford region.
Julie’s new book, Sisters in Arms: Female Warriors from the Antiquity to the Millennium, is published by Osprey Press: https://ospreypublishing.com/sisters-in-arms
From Edward Heath to Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron to Tony Blair—what makes a good opposition leader? Broadcaster and journalist Steve Richards joins the Prospect interview to talk about what it takes for politicians to best their opponents across the dispatch box.
You can read Steve’s essay on the politics of the opposition leader here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/other/ill-tell-you-and-youll-listen-the-one-thing-successful-opposition-leaders-all-have-in-common
Plus Stephanie Boland and Steve Bloomfield on the Labour leadership contest
Is artificial intelligence really that close to reaching “human-level intelligence”? Will hit television shows like Westworld and Humans feel quaint in the era of robot dominance?
Science writer Philip Ball joins the Prospect interview this week to discuss everything you need to know about artificial intelligence today—and why, despite all the brouhaha around super-intelligent robots, we’re far from being replaced.
You can read Phil’s essay on “The AI delusion” here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-ai-delusion-why-humans-trump-machines-robots-artificial-intelligence-alpha-go-deepmind-marcus-davis-koch-mitchell-review
Who will triumph in the battle for Britain's courts: Johnson or the judiciary? In the new issue of Prospect, our cover story goes behind the simmering politicisation of Britain’s judges in the era of Brexit, and we talk to senior judges and former Supreme Court justices on what they think will happen to the courts under Boris Johnson’s government. Judicial independence no more?
Prospect has teamed up with the Better Human podcast, a show by human rights barrister Adam Wagner, to discuss the fate of judicial review in Britain. Prospect editor Tom Clark is joined by Adam, along with Martha Spurrier, director of Liberty, Tessa Gregory, Partner at Leigh Day, and Charlie Falconer, Labour peer and barrister who helped drive through the constitutional reform act under Tony Blair’s government.
If you want to listen to the second half of the podcast – on the future of the Human Rights Act – you can visit the Better Human podcast here: https://anchor.fm/better-human
Brown sauce, like many things in the UK, came from the spoils of empire. Also, like many things in the UK, it’s become a lightning rod for endless debates about class, snobbery, and English identity. Where did brown sauce come from, and why does it occupy such a fraught space in Britain’s public imagination?
Writer and novelist Caroline O’Donoghue has just joined Prospect as a life columnist, where she will be reflecting on the big stories behind our supposedly “small” everyday objects. She joins this week’s podcast to talk about the idea behind her column, and why she kicked it off with a reflection on the humble hero enlivening many an English plate: HP sauce. The tangy condiment has more to do with the Labour Party than you might think.
You can read Caroline’s first column for Prospect, on brown sauce, here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/caroline-odonoghue-brown-sauce-column
A WhatsApp group that got started on Twitter helped journalist Suchandrika Chakrabarti process personal grief that she had been carrying for decades. Adult orphans around the world have started a group chat in which members amongst themselves about loneliness, grief—and just about everything else.
At a time when social media seems to be dominated by shouty voices, division and trolls, could this WhatsApp group pave a new way of relating to one another online?
Suchandrika’s article can be found here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/science-and-technology/orphans-young-whatsapp-grief-death-parent
And you can read Stephanie Boland’s article on Twitter here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/philosophy/why-we-cant-handle-online-criticism
Veganuary; fake cheese; lab-grown meat. "Plant-based" diets have become trendier and more mainstream over the past few years. It's often said that in the era of environmental disaster, we should all eating less meat. But can going vegan really help fend off climate change? Journalist Hephzibah Anderson joins the Prospect interview to talk about the curious history of veganism, the academic debates around its environmental promises, and the easy traps of politics based around consumer choices.
You can read Hephzibah's feature on the "Green New Meal" here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/veganism-climate-change-environment-pros-cons
From Rebecca Long-Bailey to Jess Phillips, Lisa Nandy to Keir Starmer and beyond—who will win the top spot? Former political adviser and Labour Party insider Tom Hamilton joins the Prospect podcast this week to discuss everything you need to know about the Labour leadership contest. We run through the timetable for the vote, the procedures, and what this means for the broader direction for the party overall.
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Brexit, Trump, international protests, the era of the “strongman”: Is liberalism really in crisis, or will it come out of this historical era changed, but essentially unscathed? Political theorist Katrina Forrester joins the Prospect podcast to talk about liberalism past and present, and the thought of icon of 20th century liberalism, John Rawls.
Katrina’s book, In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy is published by Princeton University Press.
Prospect's editors talk last night's election in this special edition of the podcast. What lessons were learned, what were the high and low points of the campaigns, and will the Union remain in tact?
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Sure it's a good idea in theory, but does meritocracy really work in real life? Yale law school professor Daniel Markovits joins the Prospect podcast and tells us why he's sceptical. Far from seeing a world where people can get ahead regardless of one's social background, Markovits instead argues that meritocracy has also emerged alongside a greater concentration of wealth and privilege, more so than ever.
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Did the death of one man radically alter the course of modern English philosophy? Biographer and philosopher Ray Monk joins the Prospect Podcast to talk about the life and work of RG Collingwood, a 20th century intellectual whose premature death may have led to discipline to take a different—and according to Monk, less rich—direction today.
Ray Monk’s article on RG Collingwood can be read here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/how-the-untimely-death-of-rg-collingwood-changed-the-course-of-philosophy-forever-gilbert-ryle-ray-monk-analytic-continental
What really was the East India Company, and how does its legacy affect Britain today? Historian William Dalrymple joins the Prospect podcast this week to talk about Britain’s imperial legacy and how the company grew from being a silks and spices trader to an engine of colonialism.
William’s book, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company is out with Bloomsbury.
Plus: Steve Bloomfield and Sameer Rahim on teaching history in schools
The Windrush scandal was just the tip of the iceberg. It was a result of, and part of a long-ranging Home Office strategy to create a hostile environment for Britain’s immigrants. Writer and researcher Maya Goodfellow joins the Prospect podcast this week to discuss the UK’s current and historic immigration policies, and what she learned from talking to migrants and asylum seekers while writing her book, Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats.
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Donald Trump has a long history with the US courts – 3,500 cases, it has been estimated. Journalist and author James D. Zirin joins the Prospect podcast to discuss the president’s history with the law, and what that can tell us about how Trump views politics. Also—what can we expect from the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump?
Plus: Steve Bloomfield and Stephanie Boland on the 2020 race
How will Brexit affect the vote this December? What about other burning issues, like the economy and the NHS? In this election special, Prospect’s editors debate whether this will truly be the “Brexit election,” and what seats to look out for.
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Two years on from the New York Times' publication of the Harvey Weinstein allegations, Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor join Prospect's Steve Bloomfield to discuss what it was like to report on the story—and how their article helped ignite a global movement.
Plus: Stephanie Boland on Britain's #metoo moment and what comes next.
The Germans have a word for it—can the rest of the world learn from them, too? Philosopher Susan Neiman joins the Prospect podcast to discuss her book Learning From the Germans. From her travels in the American South to the complex arguments over Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung, and from Hannah Arendt to the Enlightenment focus on happiness, Professor Neiman explores what it means to work with our history. Plus: Rebecca Liu and Stephanie Boland talk Rhodes Must Fall—and a strange Lithuanian tourist attraction.
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Journalist Charles Moore has spent over 20 years mapping the life and work of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. The final instalment of his trilogy of Thatcher’s life, Margaret Thatcher: Herself Alone is published this month.
Editor Tom Clark talks to Moore about Thatcher’s contested legacy, her attitudes to the EU and referendums, and what he’s learned at the end of his long journey.
American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt joins the Prospect podcast to discuss political anger on both sides of the Atlantic, from Boris Johnson’s discussion of Brexit to the American 2020 election.
Plus: how the internet is affecting today’s younger generations
In recent months, the climate change movement reach new heights with global strikes and large-scale marches. Journalist and author of The Uninhabitable Earth David Wallace-Wells joins the Prospect podcast and takes stock of where the global climate movement is today, and what change needs to happen to avoid the alarming futures we may face.
Plus: Tom Clark and Steve Bloomfield on the climate change proposals unveiled party conferences
At the end of an extraordinary week for the British constitution, we've brought you an extraordinary podcast. The Institute for Government's Catherine Haddon and barrister Adam Wagner join the Prospect podcast to talk about this week's Supreme Court ruling and what that means for Brexit.
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Critic and novelist Susan Sontag commanded postwar American intellectual life, capturing many minds with her sharp insights on photography, cinema, philosophy, literature, and more. A new biography by Benjamin Moser maps the life of the leading public intellectual. But does it focus on the right things?
Prize-winning writer Lisa Appignanesi OBE joins the Prospect podcast’s 100th episode to talk about the life and work of Susan Sontag—as well as her own experiences meeting the commanding intellectual.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller joins this week’s Prospect podcast to discuss what he calls “narrative economics”: the process of stories driving economic events. We often think our narratives – recessions, difficult jobs, bringing back jobs – come as a result of our economic realities. What if they also drove them?
Robert Shiller’s Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events is
Out with Princeton University Press: https://press.princeton.edu/titles/14225.html
Plus: Tom Clark and Sameer Rahim in today’s stagnated growth
What's happening with Brexit, and what should we make of Scotland's Court of Session ruling the prorogation of parliament unlawful? Jolyon Maugham QC joins for a special edition of the Prospectpodcast to explain everything going on in the courts in relation to Brexit, what he expects will happen in a no-deal Brexit and whether Boris Johnson's prorogation was unlawful.
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Citizen journalist Waad al-Kateab was twenty-six years old when she picked up a camera to document the everyday violence of the Syrian war. She was also, at the time, juggling motherhood. Her work comes together in For Sama, an award-winning documentary that looks at the intimacy of familial love and the ravages of war. She joins the Prospect Podcast to talk about life in Aleppo, what the West forgets about the war, and settling into life in the UK.
For Sama arrives in cinemas this week.
In the new issue of Prospect, Europe editor for the Daily Telegraph Peter Foster writes a sprawling longread on the inside story behind what went wrong with Brexit, from Theresa May’s initial leadership speech to failed attempts to tackle the backstop head-on.
Foster joins the Prospect podcast this week to talk about the short, failed history of Brexit thus far, and what might be expected under Boris Johnson’s leadership. Have the Brexit talks under the new prime minister been, as some of Foster’s sources have said, a mere “sham”?
You can read Peter Foster’s story on the behind-the-scenes maneuvers of the Brexit talks here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/peter-foster-brexit-longread
Plus: Tom Clark and Stephanie Boland on what Boris Johnson does next
Known as the philosopher who wrote The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir’s life has been the subject of much attention and intrigue. But her storied relationship with fellow existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre only scratches the surface of her vibrant and influential mind. King’s College philosopher Kate Kirkpatrick joins the Prospect Podcast to discuss Beauvoir’s philosophy and ethics, and her little-known work on the politics of ageing.
Kate Kirkpatrick’s Becoming Beauvoir is available with Bloomsbury: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/becoming-beauvoir-9781350047174/
David Cameron and Theresa May both came into power with ambitious visions for reforming Britain. Both, it is widely argued, failed to achieve their aims. Will Boris under Britain see the same fate? Conservative blogger and commentator Tim Montgomerie joins the Prospect Podcast this week to discuss the unfashionable, but important question of what the Conservative Party stands for beyond Brexit.
You can read Tim Montgomerie’s feature on the future of Conservatism here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/tim-montgomerie-future-conservative-party
Plus: Tom Clark and Steve Bloomfield on why the Tories have turned away from economics
What, if anything, could parliament do to stop a no-deal Brexit? Two legal experts join the Prospect Podcast this week to play out the options as they stand. EU law expert David Anderson and senior fellow at UCL’s UK in a Changing Europe programme Meg Russell join us to discuss where parliament stands today, and whether we should expect a vote of no confidence the grace Westminster soon.
Plus: Alex Dean on what insiders in the World Trade Organisation make of Britain’s post-Brexit trade prospects
93: The battle over bread, with Dan Hancox
“Bread is something that everyone has an opinion on, often quite a strident opinion.”
It is an everyday staple—and the site of a curious political battle. Do you know your sourdough from your sourfaux? Writer Dan Hancox joins us on the Prospect podcast this week and takes us behind the “bread wars.” Who are the bakers and campaigners taking on the big chains to get "fake sourdough" off the streets?
You can read Dan Hancox’s feature on the battle over bread here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-battle-over-bread
The story on the Aperol spritz discussed in the introduction is available here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/britain-italy-aperol-spritz-london-price
Plus: Stephanie Boland and Rebecca Liu on the misfortunes behind the Aperol spritz
What does Tony Blair himself make of the Blair doctrine? When the former prime minister outlined his case for intervening in Kosovo in 1999 at the Chicago Economic Club, he unveiled a bold new internationalist doctrine—one that sought to meld liberal values with a strong interventionist arm.
Twenty years on, deputy editor Steve Bloomfield met Tony Blair to discuss the contested legacy of the Blair doctrine. What, if anything, has the former prime minister learned from his adventures abroad, and should we expect Boris Johnson to dig liberal interventionism out from its grave?
You can read Steve Bloomfield’s profile of Tony Blair and review of the Blair doctrine here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/tony-blair-second-thoughts-war-iraq-liberal-interventionism
Has inequality gotten worse? And where have all the good jobs gone? In this special bumper edition of the Prospect podcast, we talk to economist David Blanchflower at our inequality crisis, and why tackling the unemployment rate may not be the best way to improve things.
Plus, we present clips from Nobel prize winner Angus Deaton’s event with Prospect and the British Academy, where the ‘deaths of despair’ economist talks about the difference between inequality and unfairness, and which presidential candidate he thinks will measure up to Trump in 2020.
Blanchflower’s new book, Not Working: Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone is now out with Princeton University Press: https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13485.html
90: Demystifying the food industry, with Marion Nestle
From miracle foods to fad diets, and nutritional studies backed by murky science and shadowy sponsors, it seems like we might never quite know the truth behind what we eat. We talk to Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition and public health at New York University, on demystifying our diets and the tricky politics of food studies.
Nestle’s new book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eatis available from Hachette.
Plus: Tom Clark and Steve Bloomfield on children’s diets
What do we mean when we talk about schizophrenia—and how do we diagnose mental illness, anyway? Former nurse and now author Nathan Filer joins Prospect to talk about his new book, The Heartland: Finding and Losing Schizophrenia.
Plus: Tom and Steph talk about the—sorry, "our"—NHS; and make their predictions for a Johnson cabinet.
Our headlines are full of stories about benighted millennials and over-pensioned baby boomers, but what’s behind this new generational divide? Sociologist Jennie Bristow joins us to talk about why the “generation war” obscures more than it clarifies.
Plus: Tom Clark and Stephanie Boland on the fate of generation X
From London’s many skyscrapers to the wars over brutalism, many of us know what it’s like to either complain about an unsightly building. But these conversations hardly ever go beyond an initial judgment to consider what such ‘ugliness’ can tell us about ourselves.
We talk to MIT architectural historian Timothy Hyde about his new book, Ugliness and Judgment
On Architecture in the Public Eye. Our strong reactions to ugly buildings, he notes, can indeed tell us a lot about our own social worlds.
Plus: Tom Clark and Stephanie Boland on the ideology of the modern building
Though we often talk about the impending climate crisis, the truth is that the effects of climate change are already here. Ed Miliband joins us to talk about his radical green programme, his past work as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and why he thinks our climate crisis is tied to our economic crisis.
You can read Ed Miliband’s cover story, "How to Save the Planet" here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/ed-miliband-climate-change-economy-save-planet
Plus: Steve Bloomfield and Tom Clark offer a short history of our current climate change crisis.
The Ten Commandments is one of the most well-known pieces of scripture. It may also embody everything wrong with how we read these texts today.
Karen Armstrong joins us to talk about her new book, The Art of Scripture, and why there should be more to read more creatively beyond literalism.
You can read Reverend Lucy Winkett's review of The Art of Scripture here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/in-scripture-we-find-not-just-religious-thought-and-theory-but-a-challenge-to-how-we-read
Plus: Sameer Rahim and Tom Clark on our modern-day scriptures, and the function of the shibboleth.
Prospect’s editors went up to Hay-on-Wye last week for the annual Hay Festival of Literature & Arts. We joined Steven Pinker, Elif Shafak and poets from London’s Roundhouse Poetry Collective to talk about what they’re reading right now, and the biggest problems facing the world today.
Plus: Sameer Rahim and Stephanie Boland on the literary festival circuit and how a writer’s job today often extends beyond writing.
Tom Shakespeare joins the Prospect team to discuss a new BFI film collection about disability.
We might like to think things are always getting better—but these films show a more nuanced, complex history.
Plus: Sameer Rahim and Tom Clark discuss representation.
In the past 100 years, a total of 491 women have been elected to Parliament.
We talk to Rachel Reeves, Labour MP for Leeds West about her new book, “Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics”. How have women MPs changed the UK over the past century? Where do we go next?
Plus: Tom Clark and Stephanie Boland on the challenges of being an MP
It is said that we are living in an age of multiple crises—climate change, political upheaval, and mass disenfranchisement. Radical economist Paul Mason offers his diagnosis on our current situation, and why the 2008 financial crisis may not be the watershed moment we think it is.
Paul’s new book, Clear Bright Future, comes out May 2.
Plus: Alex Dean on the Huawei leak, and Sameer Rahim on photographer Don McCullin
“Once upon a time, contracts dissolved once you were dead… but big tech companies are holding the same terms of the contract in tact with the deceased person.”
How has Facebook revolutionised grief? Psychologist Elaine Kasket has been researching how online lives have reshaped the way we mourn, and all the uncharted questions it raises. Do you really want to remember your partner through a ‘likeness’ app in your smartphone? Who owns the data of ghosts?
Elaine’s book, “All the Ghosts in the Machine” is available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Ghosts-Machine-Illusions-Immortality/dp/147214189X
Plus: Alex Dean on the next Tory party leader, and Steve Bloomfield on podcasts and mental health
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UK Labour Party deputy leader Tom Watson has made headlines for his contested allegiances within the party.
Journalist Kevin Maguire joins Prospect to discuss the burning question often heard around Westminster: what's Tommy up to? Will he form, as teased, a National Government — or has his reputation as a blustery schemer softened over the years?
You can read Kevin's profile of Tom Watson in the latest issue of Prospect, also available online here: bit.ly/2VP0ivh
Plus: Alex Dean on 'Boris-proofing Brexit' and Sameer Rahim on the art of cultural appreciation over Easter
What happens when a child conceived using a donor sperm wants to meet their biological father?
Wendy Kramer, the “donor detective”, runs the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR) which has 63,461 members and has so far connected 16,779 individuals around the world with their donor parents or half siblings. In our May issue, journalist Stefanie Marsh follows Kramer’s work, uncovering the tricky questions on anonymity and reconciling donor rights with the rights of children. She talks to us about the experience behind the story: “it’s one of the most moving bits of journalism I’ve had to investigate.”
Plus: Alex Dean on Brexit’s constitutional crisis, and Sameer Rahim on whether literary fiction has met its “climate realism” moment.
What does it mean to translate a work of fiction—and can we really call one translation "better" than others?
Writer Miranda France joins Prospect to discuss the strange art of literary translation.
Plus: Alex Dean on whether we're heading for a general election and Sameer Rahim on why we need more mean reviews.
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In 1961, two things happened that seemed to change our idea about evil forever: Hannah Arendt reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, and a Yale experiment showed the apparent willingness of subjects to issue electric shocks to their fellow human beings—just because they were told to.
But what if everything we thought we learnt that year was wrong?
Stephen Reicher and Alex Haslam discuss how we misunderstand the nature of evil.
Plus: Steve Bloomfield on the march against Brexit, and Sameer Rahim on why Ricky Gervais isn't funny anymore.
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A truly global approach to climate change doesn't just involve a policy shift—it will mean changing how we live our lives together. Author and researcher Mike Berners-Lee joins Prospect to explain why he's (cautiously) optimistic.
Plus: Steve Bloomfield on the schools funding crisis, and Sameer Rahim on how Muslims are represented in British literature.
This week human rights barrister Adam Wagner talks tribal politics, twitter, and how to achieve a more civilised online world. Wagner speaks from experience, having recently been involved in a simmering online row about anti-Semitism on the left. His recent piece on the subject appeared in our march issue. Plus: Alex Dean on how the Tory Party turned its back on Europe, Sameer Rahim on A Confederacy of Dunces and books that come back into fashion.
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What does Brexit mean for the British constitution—and can we go back and do the vote again? Professor Vernon Bogdanor joins Prospect's Tom Clark and Alex Dean to discuss the future of Brexit. Plus: Sameer Rahim on Michael Jackson and Alex asks, have we reached the end of the two party system? (Hint: no)
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This week, Prospect gets inside the craze for tracking everything from our steps to our alcohol intake with Barbara Speed—including who the Quantified Self movement are, and why the 10,000 steps goal is basically made up. Plus: Alex Dean roots for the backstop, and Sameer Rahim goes all Marie Kondo on his bedside books
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We're all making more of an effort to cut down on waste—but does it matter? Reporter Wendell Steavenson takes us through the surprising truth about British recycling (spoiler: lots of it doesn't get recycled).Plus Alex Dean and Sameer Rahim talk Brexit winners and losers, and a new Shakespeare interpretation.
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Former ambassador to Europe Stephen Wall joins Prospect's Alex Dean to discuss Parliament's Brexit problems, including why the backstop is such an issue, why Labour MPs are struggling, and what might happen in a second referendum.Plus: Sameer Rahim, Tom Clark and Stephanie Boland discuss the harassment of MPs and commentators near parliament, and Channel 4's An Uncivil War.
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Retired US general Stanley McChrystal was at the centre of the news cycle over the holiday period. Having branded Donald Trump dishonest and immoral, the president took to Twitter to retaliate: McChrystal got “fired like a dog” by Obama and is known for his “big, dumb mouth,” Trump said. In our new podcast, recorded shortly before the row, McChrystal spoke about Trump and leadership, which in his view is a trait that we fundamentally misunderstand. His latest book is Leaders: Myth and Reality.
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In this podcast Sameer Rahim asks Clive James: what was Philip Larkin really like? What was it about this very ordinary man that enabled him to produce such extraordinary poetry? When Larkin died in 1985 he left a carefully curated collection of poems and novels but since then we’ve had shelffuls of letters—some of which James reviewed for our Winter issue—and biographies. How has our view of Larkin changed? Plus: your weekly dosing of politics. Produced by Jay Elwes.
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The Astronomer Royal joins Prospect to ask: How much can humans hope to understand? Our minds are finite but the universe is impossibly vast and always expanding. Are there some physical facts that humanity will necessarily never comprehend? This is the terrain Martin Rees covers in Prospect’s new podcast. Plus: Alex Dean on politics and Sameer Rahim on culture. Hosted by Tom Clark, produced by Jay Elwes.
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China is heading for super-power status—but will it get there? George Magnus, one of Britain's leading China experts, sets out the deep social, economic and political challenges that Beijing now faces. If it overcomes them, the prize could be huge. How likely is that? And what if it fails? With Tom Clark, Sameer Rahim, Alex Dean and Timothy Garton Ash.Produced by Jay Elwes
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Chess used to be the ultimate expression of brilliance and ingenuity—but nowadays, a Grandmaster would lose to the chess app on your smartphone. The philosopher David Edmonds discusses the triumph of computer power over humans, what it means for chess and for the world at large. Interview by Sameer Rahim. Presented by Tom Clark, with Steve Bloomfield and Alex Dean.Produced by Jay Elwes
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Why is it that when British politicians look in the mirror they see Winston Churchill—just as French politicians, such as Macron, see Charles de Gaulle? The Cambridge historian and former keeper of the Churchill archive Piers Brendon talks to Prospect's executive editor Jay Elwes about the distortions of history and how these can warp our view of the present day.Presented by Tom Clark with Sameer Rahim and Alex Dean
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An interview with Alan Rusbridger. He used to edit the Guardian newspaper and now he helps to run Oxford University. A degree from Oxford is a huge advantage in life, but it's still full of pupils from private school—so how can Oxford solve its "posh problem"?Featuring Tom Clark, Sameer Rahim and Alex Dean.Produced by Jay Elwes
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Pakistan has endured decades of unsettled politics, extremist violence and war. But can a new generation of young political activists take the country in a new direction? Samira Shackle discusses her recent article for Prospect on the emerging voices in Pakistani politics which are challenging both the government and the army—a dangerous thing to do. With Steve Bloomfield, Tom Clark, Alex Dean and Sameer Rahim. Produced by Jay Elwes.
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Prospect speaks to Paul Collier, the Oxford economist, about Britain's London problem. The capital city attracts a huge amount amount of the country's economic activity and keeps the benefits for itself: how can Britain's smaller towns and cities get their fair share? Hosted by Tom Clark, with Steve Bloomfield and Alex Dean.Producer, Jay Elwes
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The Labour Shadow Chancellor is Jeremy Corbyn's oldest political ally, but is John McDonnell the hard-left bruiser that his image suggests? Kevin Maguire talks to Steve Bloomfield about the life and times of the man who would be Chancellor and how training for the priesthood, working in factories and running a care home have shaped his world view.Featuring Sameer Rahim and Alex Dean.Produced by Jay Elwes
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Prospect magazine talks to Clare Malone from FiveThirtyEight.com about America's new left. How far can people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez go? And how will Democratic Socialists like her affect the coming midterm elections?Plus, Stephanie Boland on rediscovering a great writer and Alex Dean on when politicians just won't take the blame.Hosted by Tom Clark, editor, Prospect.Prod. Jay Elwes
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The historian, author and BBC commentator Mark Urban discusses his new book on the former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, who was poisoned in Salisbury, along with his daughter. Who was Skripal, who tried to kill him and why?Plus, Alex Dean on politics and Sameer Rahim on culture. Presented by Prospect's editor, Tom Clark.Produced by Jay Elwes.
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From May's speech to McDonnell's economics, this week Prospect brings you a round-up of the Labour and Conservative party conferences—including an audio postcard from the Tory event in Birmingham.What are the parties and their activists thinking? And what's it actually like to be at a party conference?Stephanie Boland, Steve Bloomfield, Sameer Rahim and Tom Clark get to grips with the state of the parties—while Jay Elwes and Alex Dean take you on tour to Birmingham.
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Kwame Anthony Appiah’s new book The Lies That Bind confronts the question of how social identities are formed. They are incredibly important to people: we are prepared to kill and die for them. But is identity actually a mirage? Plus: Sameer Rahim on literary prizes and Alex Dean on why there’s no such thing as a Canada Brexit
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This week it’s Stephen Collins, the illustrator who’s been doing the Prospect cartoon these many years. Subject-wise he’s covered a huge range, but one returned to more often than not recently is Donald Trump. Here, we ask Collins how you find humour in an era that’s often beyond satire. Plus: Sameer Rahim on new books about Trump and Alex Dean on Labour’s Brexit stance.
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This week Stephanie Boland speaks to historian of ideas Lyndsey Stonebridge about refugees and their status. How should history inform our thinking about the current refugee crisis? What rights should displaced people have? Stonebridge focuses on the literary side of those questions. Her new book is Placeless People and you can read her Prospect contributions here. Before we get to that, Alex Dean on the Lib Dems and Sameer Rahim on Spike Lee’s new film BlacKkKlansman
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This week Ivan Hewett asks what happens when music meets philosophy and explains what lovers of classical music get wrong about the chart hits. These are newly relevant questions thanks to the publication of Roger Scruton’s book on the western musical tradition. You can read Hewett’s review of Scruton’s book on our website. Plus: politics with Alex Dean and culture with Sameer Rahim
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This week it’s economic historian Adam Tooze, whose new book Crashed tells the story of the financial crisis. It is prompting the world to rethink the near total breakdown in international finance that happened just 10 years ago. We bring you highlights from Tooze’s recent event in Prospect towers. Plus: Alex Dean on ministerial churn and Sameer Rahim on impeachment
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This week we speak to Donald Macintyre, the author and journalist who was Jerusalem correspondent for the Independent. Macintyre has written an essay for our September issue on the gradual death of the two-state solution. Twenty-five years since the Oslo Accords were signed, it is no longer achievable. Time to look at a radical alternative? Plus: Alex Dean on the minimum wage and Sameer Rahim on Israel and Palestine in the world of music.
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This week it’s Eric Lonergan, the financier, economist and philosopher of money. Listeners will remember last year’s Bitcoin boom and bust but what next for cryptocurrencies? One day your coins may be able to decide how they are spent. Would that make the world a better place? Plus: Sameer Rahim on VS Naipaul and Alex Dean on the WTO.
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Freya Johnston wrote a widely-discussed essay for our July issue on British politeness. Is there something rude about enforced civility? More worrying, is it all an act to hide far more barbaric instincts that lurk beneath the surface? She discusses these questions with Sameer Rahim.Plus: in politics and culture, Alex Dean and Stephanie Boland look north of the border. The topics are Brexit and the devolution settlement, and the future of the Edinburgh Fringe.
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This week the Prospect team is joined by esteemed writer Sarah Churchwell. Churchwell’s new book Behold, America charts the origins of Donald Trump’s America First approach, which goes back much further than you’d think. She also asks: have we lost sight of the fact that equality was part of the American dream?Before we get to that, the Prospect staff discuss what’s new in politics and culture.
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This week Zoe Williams speaks to Tom Clark about the left-wing path to a new Europe. But what would that look like and where does Jeremy Corbyn fit in? If the Labour leader did get into Downing Street could he really do a better job than the current crop? Williams raised these questions in her essay for our August issue.Plus: Alex Dean talks select committees and Sameer Rahim on the Man Booker.
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Eight-year-olds playing Chopin is certainly impressive, but is it good for children to develop prodigious skills so early on? Suna Erdem talks to Prospect about maestros in miniature, whether they’ll grow up hating their parents, and why we’re so fixated on the concept of the youthful genius anyway. Erdem wrote on the subject for our August issue. Also: Alex Dean discusses the future of the Brexit departments and Sameer Rahim asks how much first time novelists can expect to be paid.
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This week Ben Rhodes speaks to Steve Bloomfield. Rhodes was formerly at the centre of the Obama administration: he started as a speechwriter but quickly became one of Obama’s closest advisors on foreign policy. He was there for some of the most important geopolitical events in recent history. His new book is called The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House. Bloomfield reviewed it for our July issue.
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This week Cal Flyn speaks to Stephanie Boland about Britain’s other languages. Flyn wrote about learning Scottish Gaelic in our July 2018 issue. But what is the place of Gaelic in Scotland—and are dying languages really worth saving?Flyn certainly thinks so, and argues that all of us should be taking lessons.
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Rock music is on the way down, music magazines aren’t what they used to be—but there are still an awful lot of sharp pens around. That’s the opinion of DJ Taylor who expands on his piece in Prospect’s July issue and talks to Sameer Rahim about the rock memoir. It’s a curious genre and we might think of it as unsophisticated, but actually it is at the centre of a new golden age of rock writing. Before that, Alex Dean and Tom Clark do a five minute political round-up on Brexit, Heathrow and the question of whether British politics will be lifted if England delivers in the World Cup.
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This week, as last, there’s one big story: Brexit and the Conservative Party. Theresa May just about managed to see off Remainer rebellion in the Commons. But is it a hollow victory? Tom Clark asks whether after 300 years, Brexit could be the row that finally sinks the Tories. It’s not just in Britain that the traditionally dominant centre-right is on its knees; Andrew Gamble argues in our new issue that it’s a much broader trend and explains why here. Hephzibah Anderson discusses the fall of another great institution: the British high street.
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This week saw a series of crunch votes in the commons on the EU withdrawal bill and the role of parliament in the exit process. The government escaped defeat—just—but only by making dramatic last minute concessions. It promised Tory Remainers that parliament will indeed play a significant role. Antoinette Sandbach was one of the MPs to receive personal assurances from the prime minister and she explains what was said.But over recent days Brexiteers have insisted no such assurance can have been made. It has put the stark split in the Tory Party on display for all to see: can the PM appease both the Remainers and the Brexiteers on this and other issues? Sandbach is joined by Prospect’s Jay Elwes and Alex Dean.
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When Michael McFaul became the United States' ambassador to Russia, he didn't realise what he was letting himself in for. As the architect of Barack Obama's "Reset," he thought he'd be welcomed. But instead Vladimir Putin's cronies orchestrated a campaign of harassment and spread lurid personal allegations. McFaul talks to Sameer Rahim about his new book, From Cold War to Hot Peace, which tells of how US-Russia relations broke down and why Putin's aggressive posture on Crimea and Syria seems to be outfoxing the west. And why on Russia Donald Trump is at loggerheards with his own administration.
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This week it’s football. The World Cup is fast approaching and we are preparing for what is usually one of the greatest sporting spectacles on earth. But with a cloud of corruption hanging over the event, could we fall out of love with the World Cup altogether? Jonathan Liew of the Independent has written an essay on this subject for our June issue. Here he talks the question through with Prospect’s Deputy Editor Steve Bloomfield.
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Sameer Rahim talks to philosopher John Gray about what atheists get wrong about atheism. Dismissing the "God debate," which as a non-believer Gray has no interest in, instead he focuses on the variety of atheisms on offer in the modern world: from liberalism as a modern day secular religion to the atheism of silence of Spinoza. Gray, as usual, takes no prisoners.
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China is the new great global power. But while much has been said about China’s economic and military heft, what about the rise of Chinese ideas? As Beijing grows increasingly dominant we will have to decide how firmly we hold western values of academic freedom and human rights: they will increasingly be challenged.Tom Clark is joined by Isabel Hilton, who has written an essay on China for our new issue, Kerry Brown, who examines how Australia is dealing with China’s rise, and Rana Mitter who discusses great thinkers of China’s past.
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The unipolar world of a dominant United States is falling away as other nations—most prominently China—come to the fore. Ian Bremmer, the American political scientist, speaks to Prospect Deputy Editor Steve Bloomfield about his new book Us and Them. The average citizen across the west is not a believer in "globalism," he says. Executive Editor Jay Elwes speaks to David Omand, former head of GCHQ about how the internet is shaping and shifting politics around the world.
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We’ve all read the local election headlines by now: disappointment for Labour, relief for the Conservatives. But what are the deeper trends at play? For this week’s edition of Headspace the Prospect team tunnels deeper into the results with help from psephology great David Butler and Jade Azim, head of Women in Political Data. We ask why Labour failed to deliver on expectations and what it all means for the shifting contours of the British political landscape.
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Article 50 is ticking down and the politics is getting messier. A series of government defeats in the Lords are setting the stage for a dramatic scrap in the Commons. John Kerr, the man who wrote the exit clause, sits down with Victoria Hewson of the Institute of Economic Affairs, as well as Prospect’s Tom Clark and Alex Dean. They try to make sense of the unfolding drama in Westminster. Just how is this immense constitutional challenge going to play out?
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The novelist Will Self talks to Prospect's Tom Clark and Sameer Rahim about his experiences with drugs, and how they’ve shaped his view of the world. He discusses his recent essay for Prospect which examines the new book by Michael Pollan and also offers some useful advice for those who’ve accidentally taken too much acid.
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If modern economic theory led to the Financial Crisis of 2008, some of its basic ideas need to change—but how? In this podcast, Howard Reed describes how the discipline went wrong, and how it must be reformed and Linda Yueh asks how the great economists of the nineteenth century might have reacted to modern times.And if we do develop a new economic outlook, who will be in No 10 to implement it? Jacob Rees-Mogg? Perhaps, says Sonia Purnell, who describes the Tory MP’s continuing allure for his party—even if others elsewhere find him less appetising. And Patience Wheatcroft, the Conservative peer, discusses the Parliamentary fight over Brexit. Will it happen? Chaired by the Editor of Prospect, Tom Clark.
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Britain’s international relationships are in a highly sensitive moment, not only with adversaries such as Russia but with more traditionally friendly states such as the United States. And with Vladimir Putin playing the poison-handed joker on the world stage, how should Britain approach these crucial diplomatic challenges? What can Britain offer and what do we want?This podcast features interviews with Jane Kinninmont of Chatham House, an expert on Saudi Arabian politics and Luke Harding of the Guardian, who has spent years delving into the relationship between Trump and the Kremlin. Who are Britain’s friends now and who are our opponents?
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Jay Elwes takes a deep dive into the aftermath of the attempted assassination in Salisbury of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Why has this happened? Can we be certain Russia is behind it? What is Putin’s game?Featuring comment from Jonathan Eyal, one of Britain’s most experienced Russia experts, Pauline Neville-Jones, the former head of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee, and Anatol Lieven of Georgetown University, this edition goes deep into the world of espionage, disinformation and the strange logic of the man behind it all—Vladimir Putin.
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This week Tom Clark, editor of Prospect, sits down with Cathy Rentzenbrink, the writer, and Joanna Bourke, the social historian, to discuss our changing relationship with death.Medical science is now able to prolong human life in a way that was unthinkable even ten years ago. But is it in our interest to extend life in that way? Who benefits from putting people into this half-alive state? And how is digital technology affecting our ability to mourn?Also on the podcast Philip Ball, the science writer, describes how scientists in London are growing a second version of his brain. And if we can do that, can we live on after death in the Petri dish? And what does that mean for the question of “the self”?
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This week, Prospect’s Editor Tom Clark sits down with Shami Chakrabarti, the lawyer and Labour peer whose new book, "Of Women," takes a close look at the place of women in society and reveals in uncomfortable detail the gross unfairness that they still face. But then the Labour Party is not immune from sexism in its own ranks—and unlike the Conservative Party has never had a female leader. Chakrabarti thinks that record is set to change. Anne Perkins of the Guardian and Sameer Rahim, Prospect’s Arts and Books editor, join in the debate.
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Prospect Editor Tom Clark sits down with Steven Pinker, the Harvard scientist, to discuss his new book on the Enlightenment and how that period in the development of human thought continues to shape our world.The ideals of reason and tolerance are winning out, he says, and the result is immense material progress. Things are quite simply getting better all the time—contrary to popular belief.That’s the argument. But is the division of history into pre- and post-Enlightenment as clear-cut as his book suggests? And really, was the Enlightenment quite as enlightened as we might think? Sameer Rahim, Prospect’s Arts and Books Editor and Philip Ball, the science writer and Prospect contributor, also give their thoughts.
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Lionel Shriver, Afua Hirsch and Mary Beard talk freedom of speech, power and the new culture wars.
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Prospect today publishes an exclusive podcast interview with John Sawers, head of MI6 from 2009-2014. Sawers raises deep concerns over the security and intelligence consequences of Brexit. He says: “My concern on the intelligence and security front is over the exchange of data. Data is now central to the way in which security services in particular monitor threats. Track people who might pose a threat to UK security—and the rules on exchange of data are going to be set in the EU and we won’t be round the table with our voice with our weight stressing the vital importance of these data exchanges to our national security.” On Theresa May, Sawers says: “I don’t think she’s a natural at engaging on these big political issues with foreign leaders.” On Britain in the world: “We have made less impact in the world in the last ten years than we did in the 30 years before that.” Sawers goes on to discuss the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, Britain’s failure to intervene in Syria, Russian meddling in western elections and relations between Britain and the US.
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The immense political, constitutional and legal challenge posed by Brexit becomes clearer by the day. With talks now stepping up a gear and turning to the future relationship, Prospect Editor Tom Clark and Deputy Digital Editor Alex Dean sat down with representatives from either side of the debate. Gisela Stuart, the Labour politician who chaired Vote Leave, clashed with Ian Dunt, Remainer and editor of politics.co.uk. Prospect’s Executive Editor Jay Elwes spoke to polling extraordinaire John Curtice. Where does public opinion now stand on this defining issue of our times?
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Prospect’s Editor, Tom Clark, spoke to the writer and academic Shahidha Bari about her recent essay on the problem of art made by terrible men. What should our attitude be to their work and does history give examples of how those views might change over time? Stephanie Boland, Digital Editor and Sameer Rahim, Arts and Books Editor were on hand to offer their insights, in the first in a new series of weekly podcasts from Prospect.
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Not so long ago the web was on the quirky edges of life, but today it is at its heart. John Naughton started out as an enthusiast, but today he joins Tom Clark to explain why it has fallen prey to corporate capture and bred a new surveillance capitalism. James Ball explains how social media has been used to brainwash voters. Meanwhile, Samira Shackle comes back from a trip to Mosul, the Iraqi city until recently under IS control, and explains how blameless citizens there are today paying the price for having been unwilling appendages to the jihaddi killing machine.
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Not long ago, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton said there was no more point in arguing with globalisation than the weather: it was an unstoppable wind of change. No longer. It has spun into reverse. Dani Rodrik joins Tom Clark and explains why good economics always made hyper-globalisation a dubious proposition. Meanwhile, Keynes biographer Robert Skidelsky reappraises the record of one thoughtful globaliser: Gordon Brown. And feminist Lynne Segal takes on another sell from the economics profession: the “happiness industry."
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Britain’s business leaders are increasingly jittery about a “cliff edge” Brexit. But is leaving Europe necessarily a threat for UK PLC, rather than an opportunity? Economists Adam Posen and Diane Coyle join Tom Clark and give the low-down, both on the scale of the coming shock as they see it, and the pre-existing frailty of the low-productivity British economy. Meanwhile, Andrew Dickson has taken a trip to Bilbao and asks whether culture is the key to restarting an economy.
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Dutchman Joris Luyendijk imagined he was moving in with European cousins when he arrived in London; six years later he was cheering on Brexit. He tells Tom Clark how he learned to loathe England. At least Britain can laugh at itself—Sameer Rahim has been talking to our greatest living satirist, Armando Iannucci. All nations are defined by the stories they tell about themselves, and Daniella Peled reviews the work of the new Palestinian Museum in putting twists in the tale of a people without a land.
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Prospect has a new podcast series starting this week, called How To Fix... - and we'd like to share it with our Headspace listeners. In the first episode, Steve Bloomfield was joined by Andrew Dilnot, Liz Kendall and Daniel Drepper to discuss social care—what's wrong with it, and how we could make it better.You can subscribe now to hear future episodes at: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/howtofixShow notesHere’s Andrew Dilnot’s report on Funding of Care and Support. webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/2013022…report/Liz Kendall mentioned the Barker report. Here it is. www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/commi…l-care-englandHere’s Daniel Drepper’s book on Amazon. www.amazon.de/Jeder-pflegt-allei…1740017/ref=sr_1_1And if you’d prefer something in English, here’s a piece on Correctiv: correctiv.org/en/investigations/…-home-care-system/, the non-profit Daniel co-founded, that dealt with the same issue.In April 2015, Liz Kendall spoke to the Guardian about social care. www.theguardian.com/society/2015/ap…care-health-nhs Here are the manifestoes from 2017. Labour’s bit on social care begins on page 71, the Conservatives infamous policy is recorded for posterity on page 64: www.labour.org.uk/page/-/Images/ma…festo%202017.pdf, while the Lib Dems’ section is here: www.libdems.org.uk/health.
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Just how much difference — or not — do the quirks of an individual make to the tide of history? In this month’s episode we welcome historian-turned-Cabinet minister Andrew Adonis, who claims every election is won by the more talented leader. We hear from Wittgenstein's biographer, Ray Monk, who argues that one of the greatest philosophical minds of the lot—Gottlob Frege—lived in a husk of a man. Finally, the globe-trotting journalist, Wendell Steavenson, who followed a refugee family from Syria to the US, describes the heartening signs that America’s open-armed tradition towards immigrants surviving the personality of Donald J Trump.
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This month Tom Clark and guests chew over three simmering—or potential—culture wars.Immigration is often said to divide the "metropolitan elite" from "the masses", but Steve Bloomfield says that Canada proves that, done the right way, immigration can be popular.Jessica Abrahams fills us in on what's good, what's bad and what's complacent in fourth-wave feminism.And the Sun's Emily Andrews fills us in on how insiders fear that the change of the guards at Buckingham Palace that will bring in Charles III could bring down the institution at the pinnacle of British class: the monarchy.
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Alison Wolf, Paul Ormerod and Adam Tooze join Prospect Editor Tom Clark to discuss whether it’s a good thing that so many people go to university; why trust in experts has fallen so low; and how, 10 years on from the banking crisis, a new system of regulation has been quietly introduced under-the-radar. But how sustainable is it?
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The malconents have, once again, wrought revenge on the know-it-alls, landing Britain with a hung parliament instead of the predicted Conservative landslide. Steve Richards sees election 2017 as one more instance of the worldwide trend for outsiders causing an upset at the expense of an establishment which has lost all legitimacy since the economic crisis of a decade ago. Rachel Sylvester says the campaign performed an X-ray on Theresa May’s political soul, and revealed a brittle character that was never strong nor stable. Meanwhile, David Berry looks back to the 1930s, when radicals took a break from politics to set up tennis clubs—and made with such success that they took gas fitters and machinists to the All England Club, in the Worker’s Wimbledon.
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Nick Cohen, Matthew Parris and Meg Russell (Constitution Unit) join Tom Clark and a live audience to discuss where Theresa May’s surprise ballot will leave the government, the opposition and a divided country.
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In the ninth edition of Prospect's monthly podcast, Nick Cohen, Christine Ockrent and Geoffrey Wheatcroft join our editor, Tom Clark, to discuss the British and French elections, as well as the extraordinary resilience of the Tory party.
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Simon Jenkins, Wendell Steavenson, and Paul Hilder join Tom Clark to discuss the fraying Union between England and Scotland, the reordering of London to favour the global elite, and the way that new digital campaigns are disrupting the old politics everywhere
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Ross McKibbin, Nicholas Timmins and Lucky Wadham join Tom Clark to discuss the condition of Labour and its greatest creation, the NHS, as well as Marine Le Pen's run at the French Presidency.
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“Debate globalisation?” Tony Blair said a dozen years ago, “You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer." Well, we’re debating it now all right, and economist George Magnus fears that it's set to spin into reverse—very possibly sinking us into a global trade war. Some unhappy dwellers on Planet Trump fear that real war could soon be on the agenda as well. Spies are better placed than most of us to assess the risks, and a host of them have been coming out of the shadows to speak to Prospect’s Executive Editor, Jay Elwes about how they’re getting on with the new White House regime. The way that Brexit Britain navigates these frightening waters will depend very much on the woman at the wheel—Theresa May. Anne Perkins of the Guardian has been digging into her early life to get a sense of what makes our prime minister tick.
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Power to the people! As an ideal democracy has long reigned unchallenged, but could it fall out of fashion after the convulsions of Brexit and Trump?Certainly, Vladimir Putin's cyberwars raise new questions about its integrity. Journalist Luke Harding, who was expelled from Russia in 2011, explains how the Kremlin's campaign of democratic disruption abroad exports tricks long in use in its elections at home. He also relays his first-hand experience of Putin's spies, who left sex manuals by his martial bed!Freshly returned from Indonesia, "recovering epidemiologist" Elizabeth Pisani talks about the bottom-up culture that makes elections vibrant out there, and draws inspiration from the young Aids activists of the 1980s. They demonstrated how active democratic campaigning by ordinary people can change the direction of things. In the end, the health of democracy is bound to depend on the way its building blocks—that is, individual human beings—make decisions. The bad news, says economist John Kay, is that we aren't systematically rational; but the good news is that this does not make us any less wise.
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The only world order any of us can remember has been led by one super-power above all others, the United States. But the election of the intermittently isolationist Donald Trump—combined with the ongoing eclipse of American economic power by the Chinese continuing in the background—could mark the moment where the liberal rules of the game finally unravel.Certainly, that is the view of Francis Fukuyama, the political scientist who a generation ago proclaimed the victory of America’s liberal democratic after the Cold War as “the end of history." Today, however, he tells us that the democratic half of liberal democracy is now wreaking revenge on on the liberal part: Trump is merely an emblem of that. And Fukuyama fears that the consequences could in time prove to be just as big as the end of Communism. The historian Adam Tooze, agrees. He pinpoints the birth of the American Century to 1917—with the US entry into the First World War—and he argues that this year’s centenary will thus prove to be funereal marker. Globe-trotting writer Wendell Steavenson—who has lived in Iraq, Lebanon and Paris—keeps a keen eye out for American influence everywhere she goes, and explains why McDonald’s has been the perfect outpost of an American empire, whose days may be finally running down.
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All that is solid melts into air. It was one of Karl Marx’s most famous slogans, but the great Victorian might have been writing about 2016. Many a political death arrived suddenly, and famous names from Prince to David Bowie died literally too. The British people voted to crash out of the European Union, and now—the one thing all the wise heads agreed couldn’t happen has done. America has voted in President Donald Trump. Where are these unsettling times taking us, and what will the new president actually do? In the third episode of this monthly series, Prospect editor Tom Clark is joined by the esteemed American writer, Sam Tanenhaus who has followed Trump all year and explains why this most unprepared of leaders is looking as shocked as the rest of us; and, Diane Roberts, a literary critic and a commentator for National Public Radio warns that Trump’s arrival could set back the clock for women and minorities by half a century. The historian, Ruth Dudley-Edwards, gives her take on whether the effect of one of 2016’s earlier surprises—Brexit—could reopen an ancient Irish wound on the border. And all the panel reflect on one of the year’s cheerier “Oh My God” moments: the award of the Nobel literature prize to Bob Dylan. All of the discussion draws on articles in the December 2016 edition of Prospect magazine.Produced by Matt Hill at Rethink Audio. To download the next episode automatically, you can subscribe to this series on iTunes (using the button above) or through the many free podcast apps available for your smartphone. Just search "Prospect Headspace" and subscribe.
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Is it time to come off the love drug? Is there now real promise in the radical energy of the Corbynite left? What explains the rage pulsating through the US election campaign? In the second episode of this monthly series, Prospect editor Tom Clark is joined by the novelist Will Self, the author Rachel Shabi and Diane Roberts, a commentator for National Public Radio who has been reading up on “hillbilly communities.” The four of them discuss the ideas gracing the November 2016 edition of the magazine. Produced by Matt Hill at Rethink Audio. To download the next episode automatically, you can subscribe to this series on iTunes (using the button above) or through the many free podcast apps available for your smartphone. Just search "Prospect Headspace" and subscribe.
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In the first episode of this new monthly series, Prospect editor Tom Clark is joined by three contributors to discuss the ideas gracing the October edition of the magazine.We hear from Joanne Paul on what Thomas More's "Utopia" can tell us about politics some 500 years after it was first published. Rachel Holmes applauds the rise of women to positions of political power—but are they radical enough? Plus, former Conservative minister David Willetts tells us why Thatcher's industrial policy needs updating.Produced by Matt Hill at Rethink Audio. To download the next episode automatically, you can subscribe to this series on iTunes (using the button above) or through the many free podcast apps available for your smartphone. Just search "Prospect Headspace" and subscribe.
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