ISSUE 137 AUGUST 2007

Contributors to this issue

PHILIP BALL is a science writer

HARVEY COLE is an economic consultant

MARK COUSINS is Prospect ’s film critic

JAMES CRABTREE works for the cabinet office

JOHN DENHAM is secretary of state for innovation, universities and skills

JULES EVANS is writing a book on liberalism and anxiety

STEPHEN EVERSON is writing a book on metaphysics and the mind

DAVID GOODHART is editor of Prospect

JULIAN GOUGH is the author of Jude: Level 1 (Old Street Publishing)

CATHERINE HAKIM is a senior research fellow in sociology at the LSE

CAR HILLS is a former editor of PEN News

CHRISTOPHER HIRD is joint managing director of Fulcrum Productions

DONALD HIRSCH writes on social policy

JOHN KAY is an economist

NIBRAS KAZIMI is a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, Washington DC

MARTIN KETTLE is a Guardian columnist

GERALD KNAUS is director of the European Stability Initiative

BEN LEWIS presents BBC4’s Art Safari

DANIEL LITVIN is author of Empires of Profit (Texere)

ANDREW MARR is a journalist

TOM NUTTALL is senior and online editor of Prospect

PHILIP OLTERMANN coedited How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors (Rizzoli)

ALAN PHILPS was foreign editor of the Daily Telegraph from 2003 to 2006

MICHAEL PREST is a freelance writer

KATHARINE QUARMBY is a contributing editor to Prospect

ALEX RENTON won the 2006 Glenfiddich award for best food writer

ROBERT SANDALL is a journalist, broadcaster and music critic

ROGER SCRUTON is a philosopher

WILLIAM SKIDELSKY is deputy editor of Prospect

JOAN SMITH is a writer and novelist

ROSE TREMAIN is author of The Road Home (Chatto). “Extra geography” first appeared in Good Housekeeping

JOHN WILLIAMS is the author of The Cardiff Trilogy (Bloomsbury)

contents

Coverstory 28Off the record In recent years,the economics of pop music have been upended.The market for CDs has collapsed,and not even the rise of legal downloading can offset the damage to record companies.Meanwhile,says Robert Sandall,demand for live performances has rocketed.

Opinions

Essays

12Behaviour rules Issues of culture and behaviour are finally being placed at the centre of the education debate. KATHARINE QUARMBY

13Strength in numbers Great art doesn’t have to be produced by solitary geniuses. WILLIAM SKIDELSKY

14Elect the inspectors Inspectors must be made accountable to local people, not ministers. JOHN DENHAM

15Iraq’s oil conundrum Many people think it was a war for oil, but US and British companies may end up getting none of it. DANIEL LITVIN

16Who works harder? The sexes do equal amounts of work during their lifetimes. CATHERINE HAKIM

17Something for everyone Brown’s idea of “progressive universalism”may come unstuck. DONALD HIRSCH

18Who will free Turkey’s women? There can be real progress for women in a Muslim Turkey. GERALD KNAUS

Debate

22The Diana moment: a change for the better? Did Diana’s death make Britain a more emotionally healthy country? Or was it just the first example of the trend to turn private grief into public spectacle?

ANDREW MARR VSJOAN SMITH

32The sacred and the human Today’s atheist polemics ignore the fact that religion is not primarily about God, but about the need for the sacred. Religion is not the cause of violence, but the solution to it. ROGER SCRUTON

36The failure of market failure New Labour economics is based on the idea of market failure. But the doctrine smuggles in too many neoliberal assumptions. The centre-left needs something better. JOHN KAY

Journal

44Life,but not as we know it Thanks to the new science of synthetic biology, it will soon be possible to create living cells in a laboratory. I went to Greenland to find out more. PHILIP BALL

Special report

50Taxing the super-rich In recent years, Britain has attracted many ofthe world’s super-rich—thanks partly to the favourable tax regime. But politicians ofleft and right are starting to wonder ifit’s possible to increase the tax take on the wealthy without driving them abroad. DAVID GOODHART & HARVEY COLE

2 Prospect AUGUST2007 Portrait

56Albert Ellis The foul-mouthed father of cognitive therapy, Albert Ellis, is a modern Diogenes. JULES EVANS

Columns

10Letter from Berlin Hey, I found a trampoline! JULIAN GOUGH

20Washington watch Will Bloomberg run? TUMBLER

26Matters of taste Foods for all seasons. ALEX RENTON

43Rivers of Babylon Are the Sunnis finally accepting the inevitable? NIBRAS KAZIMI

48Inefficient markets Exporting our higher education. MICHAEL PREST

54These islands Cardiffs I have known. JOHN WILLIAMS

59Brussels diary Sarkozy outflanks Brown. MANNEKEN PIS

80Confessions Why I took 100 paracetamol. CAR HILLS

Regulars

04Letters 06News & curiosities 08Grayling’s question 08Enigmas & puzzles 73Classifieds 78The generalist 79The list

Forthcoming

Alexander Fiske Harrison goes bullfighting. James Drummond on the endgame in Iraq. Kate Saunders confesses. Chris Wilkinson on peripatetic theatre. The next issue of Prospectis published on 30th August

Arts and books

Fiction

60 Extra geography We were fourteen. We decided to fall in love with the next person we saw. ROSE TREMAIN

Reviews

64 Champion of the arts John Tusa reveals how he transformed the ailing Barbican into one of the world’s best centres for high culture.

STEPHEN EVERSON

66 A dictatorship of idiots? Critics of websites such as Wikipedia claim they are eroding expertise. But would anyone really want to put the clock back? JAMES CRABTREE

67 Motorcycle diaries The neglected war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has killed 4m people, tells us more about Africa’s problems than do Darfur or Rwanda.

ALAN PHILPS

68 Chile’s poet-revolutionary Since his death in 2003, Chilean novelist Roberto Bolañño has undergone a process of sanctification. PHILIP OLTERMANN

69 Life in Extremistan Unforeseen events like 9/11 may be on the rise. Is it possible to improve our predictions, or should we simply accept what we don’t know? TOM NUTTALL

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Web exclusives

PERVEZ HOODBHOY on the roots of Pakistani extremism

WILLIAM PFAFF on Jonathan Power’s Conundrums of Humanity

TOM CHATFIELD on Sarah Hall’s new novel, The Carhullan Army

Online archive

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

Music

JAY RAYNER on the marketing of pop music to children

TONY PARSONS on the musical generation gap and Britpop

Religion

ALAN RYAN debates whether Christianity has been a disaster

BRUCE CLARK on Muslims in Birmingham

Arts columns

62Widescreen What road movies tell us. MARK COUSINS

71Private view A reluctant art photographer. BEN LEWIS

72Performance notes Operatic turkeys. MARTIN KETTLE

77Smallscreen Don’t privatise C4. CHRISTOPHER HIRD

Mental health

ZOE HELLER & ROY PORTER on Prozac and the chemistry of happiness MAGNUS LINKLATER on the decline in Britain’s mental health services

Diana

GEOFFREY WHEATCROFT looks back on 1997: the year of the New Labour landslide and the death of Diana

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF,ZOE HELLER,

IAN BURUMA,KATE KELLAWAY & OTHERS consider the meaning of Diana

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