CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE
PHILIP BALL’s most recent book is The Devil’s Doctor (Heinemann) STEPHEN CHAN

is the dean of law and social sciences at Soas works for Javier Solana

contents
Issue one hundred and twenty-three June 2006

ROBERT COOPER MARK COUSINS

is the author of The Story of Film (Pavilion Books) is director of

ALASTAIR CROOKE

Conflicts Forum
SHEREEN EL FEKI

COVER STORY

is a journalist working for Al Jazeera International is a musician and producer

30
National anxieties
DAVID GOODHART

BRIAN ENO

STEPHEN EVERSON

is writing a book on metaphysics and the mind is editor of Prospect

DAVID GOODHART ROBERT HARLAND

is a psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in London

DAVID HERMAN is a contributing editor to Prospect DONALD HIRSCH is special adviser to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation JOHN KAY

is an economist is a football agent

Issues of security and identity have been unexpectedly prominent since 1997. Labour has found itself squeezed between its liberal supporters and its anxious ones. The two can be reconciled in a politics of liberal realism based on a robust defence of national citizenship.

STEVE KELLY TIM KING

is a writer living in France

JAMES LASDUN’s

most recent novel is Seven Lies (Jonathan Cape) is a professor of social policy at the LSE

OPINIONS

SYMPOSIUM

12 Goodbye Galbraith
JOHN KAY

22 World cup fever
ALEXANDER OSANG, CARYL PHILLIPS STEVE KELLY & HARRY REID

JULIAN LE GRAND

is the author of Open World (Abacus)
PHILIPPE LEGRAIN ALEXANDER LINKLATER

JK Galbraith’s skill lay not in economic theory but in public comment.

12 Arabs and Aids
SHEREEN EL FEKI

is deputy

editor of Prospect
DANIEL LITVIN

An East German’s ambivalence over German success; Ghana’s struggle to blend stars with locals; the rise of the US; and a prayer for English failure.

is the author of Empires of Profit (Texere)

Do Islamic practices protect Arab countries from HIV? ESSAYS

ALEXANDER OSANG is a German journalist and writer

14 Healthy controls
JULIAN LE GRAND

36 After Freud
ALEXANDER LINKLATER & ROBERT HARLAND

is author of Dancing in the Dark (Secker & Warburg)
CARYL PHILLIPS JONATHAN RÉE is a freelance historian and philosopher HARRY REID

The NHS is improving—while swapping targets for quasi-markets.

16 Crude politics
DANIEL LITVIN

is a former editor of the Glasgow Herald is an associate director

The struggle between oil firms and poor countries continues.

On the 150th anniversary of his birth, Sigmund Freud’s legacy is being dismantled by the ideas of his greatest challenger, Aaron Beck. But with cognitive science comes a new battle for the meaning of the human mind.

BEN ROGERS

of IPPR
IAN STEWART

17 Forcing the vote
BEN ROGERS

is professor of mathematics at Warwick University is a novelist, screenwriter and journalist living in London

42 War and democracy
ROBERT COOPER

Belief in voting as a duty has withered. We need compulsory turnout.

ERIK TARLOFF

18 Mugabe’s last gasp
STEPHEN CHAN

book A Royal Affair is published by Chatto and Windus
STELLA TILLYARD’s

Zimbabwe’s economy is in meltdown. Can the country learn from China?

Tony Blair’s former foreign affairs adviser considers the ambiguous lessons of the Iraq war. Realpolitik, he finds, is still necessary in a world of power but increasingly unworkable in a world of democracy.

2 PROSPECT June 2006

www.prospect-magazine.co.uk

INTERVIEW

48 Talking to Hamas
ALASTAIR CROOKE

Hamas official Osama Hamdan explains how US pressure is making it hard to govern. But the organisation, if it can stay on track, is set to change the face of Islamism and then the middle east.

arts&books
71 Roth’s melancholy meditation
ERIK TARLOFF

Philip Roth’s new novel confronts isolation, death and, almost uniquely in his oeuvre, selfishness. But is it time for him to return to the life force?

SPECIAL REPORT

52 Growing old disgracefully
DONALD HIRSCH

COLUMNS

In Britain, the system of funding long-term care for the elderly is arbitrary, unfair and unsustainable. So what kind of system do we want, and how will we pay for it?

64 Smallscreen
DAVID HERMAN

Television’s full of cops and docs.

77 Musical notes
STEPHEN EVERSON

An unintentionally funny Ring. COLUMNS

10 Tillyard’s tales
STELLA TILLYARD

80 Cultural tourist
FICTION The Theatre Museum in crisis. Plus Under the radar.

Where should I be buried?

56 An anxious man 20 Lab report
PHILIP BALL JAMES LASDUN

The twilight of British chemistry?

Through his investments, Joseph becomes gripped by a seething, uncontrollable obsession.

WEB EXCLUSIVES Iain McLean interviews Adam Smith Alison Wolf replies to her critics Iran symposium
www.prospect-magazine.co.uk

28 Inefficient markets
PHILIPPE LEGRAIN

Leave Tesco alone.

REVIEWS

66 Cinema gets real 47 France profonde
TIM KING MARK COUSINS

The French challenge to Google.

55 Brussels diary
MANNEKEN PIS

In 2001, I argued that cinema was the ultimate right-wing art form. Now at least part of the movie world seems to have become less escapist.

FORTHCOMING Kamran Nazeer on the intellectual as civil servant Karin Christiansen explains why development aid is not working Nick Crowe’s musical audit of Britain
THE NEXT ISSUE OF PROSPECT IS PUBLISHED ON 22ND JUNE

The rise of Latvian Euroscepticism.

68 From roots to relativism
BRIAN ENO

REGULARS

4 Letters 8 News & Curiosities plus Enigmas & puzzles IAN STEWART 13 Numbers game THE CRUNCHER 73 Classifieds 78 The generalist DIDYMUS 79 The list

Pop music is the most useful lens through which to view the 1960s. Joe Boyd’s memoir captures it perfectly.

69 Adam Smith’s hard labour
JONATHAN RÉE

The more you read Adam Smith, the less plausible he is as a prophet of the free market.

PROSPECT June 2006 3