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