CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

PHILIP BALL ’s most recent book is The Devil’s Doctor (Heinemann)

ANDREW BILLEN is a feature writer for the Times . He was named critic of the year at the UK magazine awards

BARTLE BULL is international editor of Prospect

RACHEL COOKE writes for the Observer

MARK COUSINS is the author of The Story of Film (Pavilion Books)

JASON COWLEY is a senior editor at the Observer

ROBERT DRUMMOND is a psychiatrist

LARA FEIGEL is the editor of A Nosegay: A Literary Journey from the Fragrant to the Fetid (Old Street Publishing)

JAMES FERGUSSON ’s book The Vitamin Murders will be published next year by Portobello Books

MICHAEL FRY is a historian and the author of The Union: England, Scotland and the Treaty of 1707 (Birlinn)

ÁNGEL GURRÍA-QUINTANA is a historian, translator and literary journalist. He writes regularly for the Financial Times

PERVEZ HOODBHOY is professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University

JEREMY ISAACS is the author of Look Me in the Eye: A Life in Television (Little, Brown)

JOHN KEEGAN is defence editor of the Daily Telegraph

TIM KING is a writer living in France

BEN LEWIS presents BBC4’s Art Safari

ALEXANDER LINKLATER is associate editor of Prospect

MAGNUS LINKLATER is a columnist for the Times

ADAM MAREK is a novelist and short story writer

DAVID OMAND is a visiting professor at King’s College London. He is a former permanent secretary at the home office

MICHAEL PREST is a freelance writer specialising in business and economics

PAUL SKIDMORE is a fellow at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson school of public and international affairs

IAN STEWART is a professor of mathematics at Warwick University

HENRY TRICKS is finance editor of the Economist

ADAIR TURNER is a former director general of the CBI

4PROSPECT December 2006

contents Issue one hundred and twenty-nine December 2006

COVER STORY

24Scotland alone

MICHAEL FRY

Devolution was meant to give Scotland the ability to solve its own problems. But since getting its own parliament, Scotland’s dependency on England has increased. A former Scots Tory explains why he has come to see independence as the solution—and why it would benefit England too.

OPINIONS 12Security dilemmas

DAVID OMAND Secret intelligence and an adversarial court system don’t live easily together.

13Winner takes all

MICHAEL PREST Since the “big bang,”the City has boomed. Has anyone else benefited?

14Too much reality

JEREMY ISAACS What kind of programmes should Channel 4 show?

18What is a civil war?

JOHN KEEGAN & BARTLE BULL Lessons from history suggest that Iraq has not yet reached civil war.

20Hands offthe arts

MAGNUS LINKLATER Is the “arm’s length”approach to public funding of culture over?

ESSAYS 28Disengaged democracy

PAUL SKIDMORE The Blair era is ending in a crisis of disengagement. Most accounts of this problem, including the Power inquiry, are unsatisfactory. Consider instead the “1 per cent solution.”

32Change ofclimate

ADAIR TURNER The key point about the economics of climate change, as the Stern review shows, is how little it costs to cut emissions sharply. Despite attacks from Bjørn Lomborg and others, Kyoto remains a good place to start.

38Turning up our noses

LARA FEIGEL Intellectuals have delighted in denigrating the sense of smell. In doing so they have dampened the boundless pleasures of the olfactory. It is time we rediscovered our noses.