Issue 123
June 2006
Contents
War and democracy
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
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
After Freud
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
On his 150th anniversary, Freud's legacy is being dismantled by the ideas of his greatest challenger, Aaron Beck. Cognitive therapy is now the orthodox talking cure in Britain, and the government wants more of it. But with cognitive science comes a new battle for the meaning of the human mind
Growing old disgracefully
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
In Britain, the system of funding long-term care for the elderly is arbitrary, unfair and unsustainable. Heavy means-testing and bureaucratic complexity are the culprits. So what kind of system do we want, and how will we pay for it?
National anxieties
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Issues of security and identity have been unexpectedly prominent since 1997. On this terrain, New 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
World Cup fever
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
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
Talking to Hamas
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
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
Will America attack?
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Despite the Iraq precedent, the odds are against a US attack on Iran any time soon
From the Tehran street
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
What does the man on the Tehran omnibus think about his country's nuclear ambitions?
Diplomacy is not enough
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Engagement alone will not solve the crisis. The west must invest in Iranian civil society and support dissidents
Defend the NPT
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
The US and Europe are trampling over Iran's right to enrich uranium
Divide and empower
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
The west should consider sanctions, but it should also focus on exploiting the divisions among Iran's ruling elite and empowering Iranian society
How to build a bomb
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
How close is Iran to building a nuclear weapon? And what can the US do to stop it?
Bias at the Beeb
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
The BBC's coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict is riddled with bias
Interview: Adam Smith
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
The author of the Wealth of Nations, back in Glasgow for a university fundraiser, has some surprising ideas on international development, taxation and the role of the state
Replies to David Goodhart
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Responses to David Goodhart's Demos pamphlet from five commentators
Design faults
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
There are few award schemes as vacuous and meaningless as the Designer of the Year
Goodbye Galbraith
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
JK Galbraith's real skill lay not in economic theorising but in public commentary
Arabs and Aids
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Arab countries argue that Islamic practices protect them from HIV. How true is this?
Healthy controls
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
The NHS is improving—but government must resist the urge to manage from above
Crude politics
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Is this a new chapter in the history of relations between oil firms and poor countries?
Forcing the vote
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Belief in voting as a duty has withered. The time has come for compulsory turnout
Mugabe's last gasp
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Zimbabwe's economy is in meltdown. Can Mugabe's successor learn from China?
Cinema gets real
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
In 2001, I wrote in Prospect that cinema was the ultimate right-wing art form. Five years on, at least part of the movie world seems to have become less escapist
From roots to relativism
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Pop music is the most useful lens through which to view the turbulent, optimistic, deluded decade of the 1960s. Joe Boyd's memoir captures it perfectly
Adam Smith's hard labour
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
The more you read Adam Smith, the less plausible he is as a prophet of the free market. Still, it can't be right to call him a proto-Marxist, can it?
Roth's melancholy meditation
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
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?
Smallscreen
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
The classic setting for sitcoms and soaps used to be the home or the neighbourhood. Now drama is focused on work-based or social identities
Musical notes
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Moments of unintended hilarity lighten an otherwise second-rate production of Wagner's Ring. But Haitink's Beethoven cycle with the LSO is exceptional
An anxious man
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Through his investments, Joseph becomes gripped by a seething, uncontrollable obsession
Tillyard's tales
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Where should I rest? The Protestant cemetery in Florence could be just the place for me, snuggling up to Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Inefficient markets
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
David Cameron has joined in the Tesco-bashing, but the OFT should leave it alone. And the IMF is proving better at spin than at giving poorer countries votes
France profonde
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
There's a European alternative to Google Books. Quaero, a Franco-German co-production, takes on the Americans with a new generation of search engine
Brussels diary
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Latvia's Euroscepticism outdoes even Britain. Le Monde rips into the French foreign minister. And someone's going to have to make way for Bulgaria and Romania
Lab report
25th June 2006 — Issue 123
Sussex's chemistry department has been spared the axe, but others have been shut. Is this the twilight of British chemistry? Plus, a new vaccine for bird flu