ISSUE 151 OCTOBER 2008

Contributors to this issue

DAVID AARONOVITCH is a Times columnist

PHILIP BALL ’s novel The Sun and Moon Corrupted is published by Portobello

LAURA BARBER is a senior editor at Portobello Books and a writer

PETER BAZALGETTE was an independent television producer for 20 years

LIAM BYRNE is minister of state for nationality, citizenship and immigration

MARK COUSINS ’s collection Widescreen: Watching. Real. People. Elsewhere is published by Wallflower Press in October

JAMES CRABTREE is a contributing editor to Prospect

JON ELEK works in publishing

JAMES FERGUSSON is author of A Million Bullets: The Real Story of the British Army in Afghanistan (Bantam Press)

JONATHAN FORD is deputy editor of Prospect

DAVID GOLDBLATT is the author of The Ball is Round (Penguin)

JULIAN GOUGH is the author of Jude: Level 1 (Old Street Publishing)

AC GRAYLING is a philosopher and the author of Scepticism and the Possibility of Knowledge (Continuum)

DAVID HERMAN is a television producer and writer

JIM HOLT ’s book Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes is published by Profile in October

PETER JUKES writes for print, stage, television, radio and now online

MARTIN KETTLE is a Guardian columnist

MARK KITTO runs a caféé near Shanghai

HANS KUNDNANI is a freelance journalist

BEN LEWIS presents BBC4’s Art Safari

NATASHA LODER is science and technology correspondent at the Economist

DAVID MILES is the UK chief economist for Morgan Stanley

BEN PAGE is chairman of the Ipsos Mori Social Research Institute

ALEX RENTON is writing a book about the rise of the food industry

ANDREW ROSENHEIM ’s new novel, Without Prejudice , is published by Hutchinson

DAVID SCHNEIDER is an actor, writer and comedian

WENDELL STEAVENSON is the author of Stories I Stole: From Georgia (Atlantic)

IAN STEWART ’s latest book is Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities (Profile)

contents

Coverstory 26David Miliband The foreign secretary explains why he remains a liberal interventionist abroad and a radical decentraliser at home. Plus,Iraq,Russia and how to mend Britain’s broken politics. Interview by Robert Cooper,Kishwer Falkner,David Goodhart,Dominic Lawson & Richard Reeves

Opinions

14Turning Japanese As overstretched financial institutions collapse, we are learning to fear debt—a bit like Japan in the 1990s. JONATHAN FORD

15The swinish multitude Edward Skidelsky’s attack on today’s liberal values simply betrays his own wish to be God. DAVID AARONOVITCH

16The rest is silence America’s universities sheltered David Foster Wallace—and almost ruined his writing. JULIAN GOUGH

19Russia or the west? Gerhard Schrööder and Joschka Fischer disagreed about which way Germany should tilt. HANS KUNDNANI

20Open carefully Immigration anxiety is in decline, partly because our borders are now more secure. We don’t need a cap. LIAM BYRNE

22South side story The key to understanding Barack Obama is to be found not in Hawaii, but in Chicago’s Hyde Park. ANDREW ROSENHEIM

Essays

38Overstretched and over there Britain’s armed forces are still formidable in battle, but undermanning and public indifference point to an institution under strain. JAMES FERGUSSON

44Closing the God gap The Republican grip on America’s evangelicals is weakening. And Democrats are finally reaching out to God’s faithful. But will this win them the election? JAMES CRABTREE

50A waste of space? During its 50 years of existence, Nasa has achieved extraordinary things. But with a lack of political direction, it is struggling to win the battle for relevance. NATASHA LODER

Journal

54Hirst’s unburstable bubble Damien Hirst’s triumphant Sotheby’s auction defied my predictions of disaster. Has the art market gone mad? BEN LEWIS

Witness

60It’s the baladi,stupid High world food prices have hurt Egypt’s poor and the complex subsidy system that is meant to protect them. Can Mubarak’s regime ride out the political volatility? WENDELL STEAVENSON

My story

66Flaming for Obama This year’s Democratic primaries weren’t just fought on the hustings and in the television studios. Some of the fiercest battles took place in the blogosphere. PETER JUKES

4 Prospect OCTOBER2008 Special report

70Does Britain need fixing? Parts of Britain are dysfunctional despite the social spending of the past decade. But the public think the situation is worse than it really is. BEN PAGE

Columns

12Matters of taste Can a goy make chicken soup? ALEX RENTON

24Washington watch It’s all about the swing states. TUMBLER

53China café é The boarding school problem. MARK KITTO

57Speculations Why do we laugh? JIM HOLT

58Lab report Techno-fixing global warming. PHILIP BALL

65This sporting life Pity poor Man City. DAVID GOLDBLATT

75Brussels diary Sarko’s had a good war. MANNEKEN PIS

96Confessions My New Yorker agony. JON ELEK

Regulars

6Letters 8News & curiosities 10Grayling’s question AC GRAYLING 10Enigmas & puzzles IAN STEWART 94The generalist 95The list

Forthcoming

JONATHAN POWER interviews Paul McCartney

PHILIP BOBBITT VSDAVID HANNAY Is an alliance of democracies is a good idea?

JONATHAN RÉÉE reviews Alasdair MacIntyre

GWYNETH LEWIS on nature writing

The next issue of Prospect will be published on 23rd October

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online arts & books

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76The second person You know what I’m like. I know what you’re like. But we can’t say it right. ALI SMITH

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Reviews

82How the master lost his voice In Philip Roth’s latest work, the tensions fuelling his talent seem to have dissipated from ferocity into nostalgia. DAVID HERMAN

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84Defending the indefensible Social philosophy can be an anaemic business in this post-ideological age—but not with Slavoj Zizek. DAVID SCHNEIDER

85Hell is other people Although she is a chronicler of middleclass viciousness, Zoëë Heller’s new novel introduces a subtler and more satisfying note of compassion. LAURA BARBER

86Primed to explode Was it greed or ignorance that fuelled the sub-prime crisis? Two new books are divided both on this question and on what to do about it. DAVID MILES

Arts columns

80Widescreen How I got seaweed stuck in my ear. MARK COUSINS

88Performance notes Why is it so hard to get tickets for popular concerts? MARTIN KETTLE

93Smallscreen The television play is alive and well.

PETER BAZALGETTE

Web exclusives

CHARLES GRANT on the Russia crisis JO-ANN MORT profiles Tzipi Livni

STEPHEN CHAN on the Zimbabwe settlement

ANSHUMAN MONDAL replies to Ed Husain’s essay

MICHAEL PREST on manufacturing

Online archive

Revisit our past coverage of some of the topics covered in this issue.

New Labour

DAVID GOODHART spends the afternoon with Tony Blair PHILIP GOULD on his childhood and the Labour party SIÔÔN SIMON’ s New Labour odyssey

Modern art

MARK IRVING on Moma: tomb of modernity

BEN LEWIS on the art market boom BRIAN SEWELL & MATTHEW COLLINGS debate the merits of the YBAs JOHN ARMSTRONG suffers the installation blues

US politics

JAMES CRABTREE profiles Barack Obama ERIK TARLOFF reports from the 2004 Democratic convention JOSHUA KURLANTZICK on what might have happened if Gore had won

Prospect OCTOBER2008 5