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Large Hadron Christmas

Prospect — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:48:53 +0000

More on the Higgs boson:

Editorial: This time it’s different

Bronwen Maddox — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:27:47 +0000

It’s usually right to dismiss claims of politicians or investors that “It’s different this time.” But the ageing of Britain and the “rich” world presents governments with unprecedented problems.

That is the central point made by our cover story, and by Nick Carn’s panoramic survey of economic threats. It might be tempting to regard the 2008 financial crisis as a contained difficulty from which we are now escaping, and budget deficits as something that a term or two of government could sort out. Indeed, that is just what many leaders, even those in the embattled eurozone, encourage voters to think.

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Prospect recommends: February

Prospect — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:15:07 +0000

John Hawkes and Elizabeth Olsen in Martha May Marcy Marlene

CLASSICAL

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If I ruled the world: Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:15:06 +0000

My first step as ruler of the world would be to announce a timetable to elect my replacement. Even in a thought experiment we should acknowledge realities, and no system of government can be effective for long when it is not responsive to the people. This is not merely about power corrupting, or that even a benevolent dictator will fail to fulfil the needs of his subjects. An authoritarian regime may competently fulfil its initial promise, or resolve an existing crisis, but without the feedback loop of democracy, moral and intellectual stagnation are inevitable.

Democracies are not immune to this societal hardening of the arteries either. The current global malaise and the financial crisis that precipitated it are the result of decades of rising complacency in the west. But the intervention of a powerful government is more likely to exacerbate such problems than to bring meaningful solutions. The free market is what works—and having the state help it is usually a contradiction in terms. Indeed, my last act as ruler would be to dissolve many of the institutions under my control, along with my office.

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In fact

Prospect — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:14:55 +0000

One in three British men claim to do the majority of ironing in their household; 18 per cent say they have ironed in the nude.
Russell Hobbs ironing survey

Al Qaeda spent around $0.5m on 9/11. The cost to the US was around $3.3 trillion, or about $7m for every dollar Al Qaeda paid out.
New York Times, 8th September 2011

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Letters

Prospect — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:14:50 +0000

The case for academies

To answer Philip Collins’s question (January), now that the government is encouraging every school to convert to academy status, will the original mission be lost? No. I believe this will create a critical mass of successful English schools.

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How to leave the euro

Wolfgang Munchau — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:14:47 +0000

A replica of the last edition of the drachma in central Athens—but could the currency make a comeback if Greece leaves the euro?

How do you get out of the eurozone? Leaving a monetary union is about the messiest thing that a country can do, short of entering into a war. But what if you have to leave the eurozone? Greece might soon be in that situation—so too Portugal.

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Bad at chess

Ali Ansari — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:14:44 +0000

Ali Motahhari, a prominent conservative member of the Iranian parliament, recently found himself wrangling with a journalist who proved even more hardline than him. Amid questions on Iran’s nuclear programme and foreign policy, the journalist asked him to comment on relations with the west. What did he think of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s line—beloved by many in Ahmadinejad’s government —that Iran should be wary of American praise and pleased by its condemnation? A strong critic of the government, Motahhari replied that this was all well and good, but such statements should not be translated into doctrine. All policy should be judged on the basis of national interest.

Motahhari’s point, buried mid-interview, is a crucial criticism of the posturing and theatrics that define Iran’s otherwise opaque nuclear programme. While pundits debate whether the country has decided to “weaponise,” one thing is certain. Iranian foreign policy is increasingly based on a single question: will this annoy the Americans? If it does, then it must be right.

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The Romney-tron

Teddy Wayne — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:14:43 +0000

“When making small talk with locals, he peppers the conversation with curious details… Mr Romney has plenty of moments when he wins positive reactions and some when he seems to make a genuine link, undercutting his caricature as robotic… Ms Hebert, who has shown dairy cows, explained that a prize animal produced about 100 pounds of milk a day. He began a series of rapid-fire calculations to determine how many gallons are in a pound: “Eight-point-three pounds per gallon. So 8 into 100 is going to be about 13, 14, gallons. Oh, 12—there you go.”

The New York Times 28th December 2011

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Stifling expression

Julie Burchill — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:14:31 +0000

Nick Cohen’s books are like the best Smiths songs; however depressing the content, the execution is so shimmering, so incandescent with indignation that the overall effect is transcendently uplifting. In 2007’s What’s Left, the last book which I felt compelled to order by the dozen and press upon whoever came to the door (a few Jehovah’s Witnesses went away with more than they bargained for) he examined the truly repulsive spectacle of “how the liberal left of the 20th century came to support the far right of the 21st.” That is, how the enemies of sexism, racism, homophobia and religious mania came to embrace all of those evils in their eagerness to suck up to the last beacon of anti-Americanism: political Islam.

Still, it wasn’t the first time that a strand of Islamism had found itself in bed with an unlikely playmate. In his new book You Can’t Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom (Fourth Estate)—which deals with the rise of self-appointed censors from jihadis to judges—Cohen reminds us that the apartheid regime in South Africa banned The Satanic Verses, and that Salman Rushdie had to pull out of a trip to Johannesburg to discuss the censorship of opponents of white rule because of death threats from South African Islamists.

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