CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

MICHAEL AXWORTHY was head of the Iran section of the foreign office from 1998-2000

JOHN BERGER ’s book Here is Where We Meet (Bloomsbury) is published in March

DAVID BIRCH is a director of Consult Hyperion, an IT consultancy

PAUL BROKS is the author of Into the Silent Land (Atlantic Books)

BARTLE BULL has reported on Iraq for the New York Times

MICHAEL COVENEY is an author and theatre critic

STEPHEN EVERSON is writing a book on metaphysics and the mind

CATHERINE FIESCHI is the author of Fascism, Populism and the French Fifth Republic (Manchester University Press)

DAVID HERMAN is a television producer and writer

MICHAEL HOROVITZ is a jazz trobadour and torch-bearer of the Poetry Olympics festival

KEVIN JACKSON is the author of Humphrey Jennings (Picador)

SIMON JENKINS is a former editor of the Times and the Evening Standard

TIM KING is a writer and documentarymaker living in France

DAN KUPER works for London Underground

JOSHUA KURLANTZICK is foreign editor of the New Republic

ELENA LAPPIN is a writer and journalist

RICHARD LAYARD is the author of Happiness: Lessons from a new science, published by Allen Lane in March

MARK LEONARD is the author of Why Europe will Run the 21st Century (4th Estate)

BEN LEWIS presented the BBC4 series, Art Safari

SEBASTIAN MALLABY is author of The World’s Banker (Yale University Press)

DAVID MARQUAND is the author of The Decline of the Public (Polity)

NICK PEARCE is director of the IPPR

JONATHAN RÉE is a philosopher and author of I See a Voice (Flamingo)

BEN ROGERS is associate director of the IPPR and author of AJ Ayer: A Life (Vintage)

IAN STEWART is a professor of mathematics at Warwick University

4PROSPECT March 2005

contents Issue one hundred and eight March 2005

COVER STORY

22

Happiness is back

RICHARD LAYARD

Our ever-increasing incomes no longer make us happier, and our competitive societies make some ofus positively unhappy. Public policy should return to Bentham’s utilitarianism, unfashionable for many decades but now vindicated by neuroscience.

OPINIONS 12Iraq’s bad press

BARTLE BULL Big media were misreading Iraq’s election. Were they hoping for failure?

13End ofthe Standard?

SIMON JENKINS Might the Evening Standard close?Is the internet finally hitting the press?

15Iranian rebels

MICHAEL AXWORTHY The MKO is a bloody, cultish terror group. Why is the west supporting it?

17Far right alarmism

CATHERINE FIESCHI Ukip and Veritas are not pretty, but must not be lumped in with the BNP.

19Spooks in court

NICK PEARCE It is time to rethink the ban on using telephone intercepts in court.

ESSAYS 28China’s chance

JOSHUA KURLANTZICK With America distracted by terrorism and Iraq, China has been spreading its influence throughout east Asia and beyond. For the first time since the cold war, US soft power is being seriously challenged.

34Ascent ofEurope

MARK LEONARD Europe’s power is easy to miss because news is told by journalists rather than historians. But Europe’s success has led to the evolution of a new kind of power—about spreading norms.

38Deafnationalism

JONATHAN RÉE Some deaf people have begun to think of themselves as forming a fully fledged “nation.”They accuse hearingaid makers and ear surgeons of genocide. Is deafnationalism viable? www.prospect-magazine.co.uk

SPECIAL REPORT 44A better class ofID card

DAVID BIRCH We will soon have an ID card scheme. But the government may be missing a trick: technology means a national ID scheme can do much more than stop us from doing things we shouldn’t.

PORTRAIT 48James Wolfensohn

SEBASTIAN MALLABY Over the coming months, as the west focuses on development, the World Bank will get a new head after the ten-year reign of Jim Wolfensohn. Who is he?What is his legacy?

COLUMNS 10Out ofmind

PAUL BROKS Meet Ferdie the gingerbread man.

20Washington watch

TUMBLER Escaping Stalag Bush.

43France profonde

TIM KING French healthcare is sick.

54Brussels diary

MANNEKEN PIS Here come the Portuguese.

80Notes from underground

DAN KUPER The training treadmill.

REGULARS 3Foreword 6Letters 8News & Curiosities plus Enigmas & puzzles IAN STEWART 15My top ten fears ELENA LAPPIN 75Classifieds 78The generalist DIDYMUS 79The list

arts&books

69Swindling the muse

MICHAEL HOROVITZ Dear Felix Dennis, we both write poetry, but you’re rich and I’m poor. You’re also a great fraud.

FICTION 56Islington

JOHN BERGER Hubert has been living here for 40 years. Now I need him to remind me of a girl’s name.

REVIEWS 64The bipolar artist

KEVIN JACKSON Not since the Renaissance has a genius practised two artistic forms with equal brilliance—except August Strindberg, whose paintings are strikingly original.

66The Wittgenstein oflaw

BEN ROGERS A “tell-all”biography of HLA Hart sheds light on the flowering of mid20th century Oxford philosophy.

67Don’t follow the people

DAVID MARQUAND Politicians of the left once led public opinion. A new biography of Blunkett shows that they now merely follow it.

CULTURAL TOURIST 72The puzzling Mr Bond

MICHAEL COVENEY Edward Bond vanished 20 years ago. Was he pushed or did he jump? Plus news and listings.

COLUMNS 63Smallscreen

DAVID HERMAN The myth of the mad artist.

71Private view

BEN LEWIS Flavin’s neon flavours.

74Musical notes

STEPHEN EVERSON London pride.

FORTHCOMING

Tristram Hunt on social history

New fiction by Yiyun Li

Roderick Swanston reviews The Oxford History of Western Music

Owen Harries on morality and foreign policy

THE NEXT ISSUE OF PROSPECT IS PUBLISHED ON 17TH MARCH

POLITICAL PUBLICATION OF THE YEAR

Political Studies Association

PROSPECT March 2005 5