CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE
RUSHANARA ALI is associate director of the Young Foundation TASH AW’s

novel The Harmony Silk Factory won the Whitbread first novel award in 2005

contents
Issue one hundred and twenty-two May 2006

PHILIP BALL’s most recent book is The Devil’s Doctor (Heinemann) SIMON BARON-COHEN

is director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University

COVER STORY

AS BYATT

is the author of The Little Black Book of Stories (Vintage) is an economic consultant

22
Divide and heal
GARETH STANSFIELD

HARVEY COLE

MARK COUSINS

is the author of The Story of Film (Pavilion Books) is a psychiatrist

ROBERT DRUMMOND

ANTHONY DWORKIN is executive director of the Crimes of War project STEPHEN EVERSON

is writing a book on metaphysics and the mind is a freelance writer based in Bristol

ROBERT GORE-LANGTON

JONATHAN HEAWOOD

is director of

English Pen
DAVID HERMAN is a contributing editor to Prospect RW JOHNSON

Despite the imminent formation of a government of national unity, Iraq is splintering into its three historic provinces. The western powers and Iraqi nationalists must now accept that radical federalism is the only alternative to civil war.

is the southern Africa correspondent for the Sunday Times is a writer living in France

OPINIONS

ESSAYS

TIM KING

12 My mate MSG
ALEX RENTON

28 Hammer and tickle
BEN LEWIS

is the author of two historical novels for teenagers, Power and Stone and Shield of Fire (Penguin).
ALICE LEADER PHILIPPE LEGRAIN is the author of Open World: The Truth about Globalisation (Abacus) BEN LEWIS

Monosodium glutamate gets a terrible press, but without it there would be no Marmite.

Communism is the only political system to have created its own international brand of comedy. Even Stalin told some good jokes.

13 Councils in charge
HARVEY COLE

34 Chastened hegemon
ANTHONY DWORKIN

presents BBC4’s Art Safari is deputy

ALEXANDER LINKLATER

editor of Prospect
ALEX MCBRIDE is a criminal barrister working in London

British local authorities are starting to regain more power over their own budgets.

16 Their riots…
TIM KING

Neoconservatism is dead. And, as Francis Fukuyama’s latest book spells out, a new US foreign policy consensus is emerging.

is author of When The Rivers Run Dry (Eden Project Books)
FRED PEARCE RICHARD REEVES

is co-founder of Intelligence Agency, an ideas consultancy is a writer living in

Who governs France? Not parliament, trampled on by the street and the president.

38 Goodbye isiXhosa
RW JOHNSON

17 …our riots
RUSHANARA ALI

ALEX RENTON

The South African constitution guarantees “parity of esteem” to no less than 11 languages. But English will soon crowd out the rest.

Edinburgh
GARETH STANSFIELD

is a reader in middle east politics at Exeter University

Five years ago, the northern riots exposed Britain’s racial divides. Have things improved?

BRIEFING NOTES

IAN STEWART

is professor of mathematics at Warwick University

44 Water, water, everywhere 18 Newspaper studies
ALICE LEADER FRED PEARCE

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

I couldn’t get my pupils interested in news—until I threatened to fail them.

Can desalination—the removal of salt from seawater to make it drinkable— solve the world’s water shortages?

4 PROSPECT May 2006