ISSUE 155 FEBRUARY 2009

Contributors to this issue

SUE ARMSTRONG is author of A Matter of Life and Death (Dundee University Press)

BERNARD AVISHAI is the author of The Hebrew Republic (Harcourt Books)

MICHAEL AXWORTHY is the author of Iran: Empire of the Mind (Penguin)

PHILIP BALL is a science writer

TONY BARNETT is ESRC professorial research fellow at the LSE

PETER BAZALGETTE is a board member of the English National Opera

PHILLIP BLOND is director of Demos’s Progressive Conservatism Project

DEREK BROWER is a journalist

WILLEM BUITER is an economist

MICHAEL BYWATER is a writer and critic

TOM CHATFIELD is arts and books editor of Prospect

JAMES CRABTREE is acting deputy editor of Prospect

MARK COUSINS is a film critic

CHRISTOPHER DE BELLAIGUE is a journalist

ADRIAN DESMOND is co-author of Darwin’s Sacred Cause (Allen Lane)

KIM FLETCHER is a Guardian columnist

JONATHAN FORD is commentary editor at Reuters

DAVID GAFFNEY is a novelist and writer

DAVID GOLDBLATT is the author of The Ball is Round (Penguin)

AC GRAYLING is a philosopher

JONATHAN HAIDT is associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia

ERIC KAUFMANN is a fellow at the Belfer Centre, Harvard University

TERENCE KEALEY is the author of Sex, Science and Profits ( Vintage )

MARTIN KETTLE is a Guardian columnist

MARK KITTO runs a café near Shanghai

ADAM LEBOR is an author and journalist

BEN LEWIS presents BBC4’s Art Safari

EHSAN MASOOD is the author of Science and Islam: A History (Icon Books)

KATHARINE QUARMBY is a contributing editor to Prospect

DOMINIC SANDBROOK is a historian

DEREK SCOTT is a former economics adviser to Tony Blair

JAMES SCUDAMORE is a novelist

IAN STEWART is a professor ofmathematics

GRAHAM TURNER is the author of The Credit Crunch (Pluto Press)

contents

Coverstory 32Rise of the red Tories The financial crisis is also an opportunity to sweep away the rotten postwar settlement of British politics.Labour is moribund.But David Cameron has a chance to develop a “red Tory”communitarianism,socially conservative but anti-big business,explains Phillip Blond

Opinions

14The lesson of 1932 British banks are lending—but not to businesses. GRAHAM TURNER

15The Obama peace deal Israelis and Palestinians are at war with themselves, as well as each other. This is Obama’s cue. BERNARD AVISHAI

16The meaning of Huntington Samuel Huntington died a pariah among America’s intellectual elite—because he was normal. ERIC KAUFMANN

17Moving pains Obama’s people are finding it hard to take his “movement”to Washington. JAMES CRABTREE

18Europe’s pipe dream Like it or not, Europe needs Russian gas. DEREK BROWER

Debate

22The crisis: a reason to join the euro? Is Britain running the risk of a sterling crisis by staying out of the euro? Or would it have been in an even bigger financial mess had it already joined? WILLEM BUITER VS DEREK SCOTT

Essays

26Darwin the abolitionist The theory of evolution is regarded as a triumph of disinterested scientific reason. Yet, on the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species , new research reveals that Darwin was driven to the idea of common descent by a great moral cause. ADRIAN DESMOND

38Public service narrowcasting Multi-channel television and the internet are killing public service broadcasting as we have known it. Let’s use the subsidy to turn Britain’s creative talents into public service “narrowcasters.” PETER BAZALGETTE

42Anniversary blues in Iran As Iran’s Islamic Republic celebrates its 30th anniversary, the confidence of the past decade looks increasingly brittle. Whatever happens in the June election, America needs a fresh approach. CHRISTOPHER DE BELLAIGUE plus DOMINIC SANDBROOK on what happened in 1979 & KATHARINE QUARMBY on the British love children of Iranian sailors

48Obama’s moral majority President Obama has a unique opportunity to unite Americans behind him. But if he is to succeed, he must find a new political language—and broaden the moral register of the political left. JONATHAN HAIDT

Witness

54Israel’s phantom people About 20 per cent of Israel’s citizens are Arabs and the violence in Gaza has further radicalised them. But the last thing they want is to become part of a Palestinian state. ADAM LEBOR

4 Prospect FEBRUARY 2009
Special report

60A crisis in pathology Pathology is central to the fight against disease. But since the Alder Hey scandal the profession has been under attack. SUE ARMSTRONG

Columns

12Crisis watch How many Madoffs? JONATHAN FORD

20Washington watch Clashing egos in Bamalot. RENEGADE

25This sporting life Let’s win the World Cup. DAVID GOLDBLATT

41These islands Nudity in church. TERENCE KEALEY

52China café Termites are eating my house. MARK KITTO

57Previous convictions Faith: mother of invention. EHSAN MASOOD

58Lab report Obama’s crack science team. PHILIP BALL

63Brussels diary The return of Russian jokes. MANNEKEN PIS

88Confessions Secrets of a debt adviser. DAVID GAFFNEY

Regulars

6Letters 8News & curiosities 10Grayling’s question AC GRAYLING 10Enigmas & puzzles IAN STEWART 86The generalist 87The list

Forthcoming

JULIAN EVANS tails the car lords of Odessa

ANTHONY KING on the untold story of the British in Basra

New columns by SAM LEITH & JULIAN GOUGH

MEGHNAD DESAI profiles Mayawati, India’s untouchable prime ministerial candidate The next issue of Prospect will be published on 26th February

www.prospect-magazine.co.uk

online arts & books

Prospect online

Fiction

Archives Every article from every issue of Prospect .

64Fungi After Tess died, Adam started to hate her family. He hated them almost as much as his own talent for coping. JAMES SCUDAMORE

Subscriptions Take out online or paper subscriptions.

Web exclusives Free, web-only content with weekly updates.

Reviews

72When we dead awaken Is this the first great novel of the 21st century? Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 is an epic that is funny, filthy, and obsessed to the point of madness with violent death. TOM CHATFIELD

74Relatively speaking As a fine new book on moral relativisim demonstrates, sometimes it’s vital to be able to tell someone else they’re wrong. MICHAEL BYWATER

75The risible wizard of Oz How did Rupert Murdoch end up the subject of an official biography with such a sharp sense of his ridiculousness? KIM FLETCHER

76Not to be sniffed at Pandemic influenza is the greatest public health threat our society faces. Yet we’re barely aware of the pandemic of 1918. TONY BARNETT

77The king and I A new biography of the last Shah of Iran is engaging but blind to the deepest causes and consequences of the revolution. MICHAEL AXWORTHY

Arts columns

70Widescreen The Prospect Oscars. MARK COUSINS

79Private view Pop goes the art bubble. BEN LEWIS

80Performance notes Opera in the cinema. MARTIN KETTLE

85Smallscreen A ghost story’s best for winter.

PETER BAZALGETTE

First DraftsProspect ’s editorial blog, updated daily.

ShopProspect ’s new Politico’s bookshop. Plus, buy binders and back issues.

Web exclusives

DANIEL MILLER on James Wood, Zadie Smith and the novel

ALEXANDER FISKE-HARRISON reviews The Philosopher and the Wolf

ANTONY LERMAN on American Jewish arguments after Gaza

Online archive Revisit our past coverage of some of the topics covered in this issue.

Darwin

MATT RIDLEY on why Darwin was the first evolutionary psychologist

PETER SINGER tries to claim Darwinism for the left

WG RUNCIMAN asks why sociology resists Darwin’s ideas

Israel

BERNARD AVISHAI on the country’s five political-demographic tribes

SUSAN GREENBERG wonders if Israel has been good for the Jews

BERNARD WASSERSTEIN on the three faces of Jerusalem

Doctors

ALISON WOLF explains what went wrong in medical training

ROBERT DRUMMOND & ALEXANDER

LINKLATER ’s dispatches from psychiatry

PAUL THEROUX follows Oliver Sacks on his rounds

Prospect FEBRUARY 2009 5