July 2017

July 2017 issue

All shook up: the election confounded expectations and transformed UK politics. Rachel Sylvester and Steve Richards ask how the winner lost and the loser won. Also: are we ready for President Pence?

Past issues

Essays

Actor Fionn Whitehead in a scene from Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. Photo: Warner Brothers

A crop of new war films wallows in misguided nostalgia

Was 8th June the revenge of the millennials?

President Mike Pence? Understanding the man who could succeed Trump

Photo: Nick Moore/Alamy Stock Photo

State of denial: Can any British government afford to meet its citizens' demands?

Photo: Martin Parr/Magnum Photos

Workers' Wimbledon: How the 1930s Labour Party hosted its own socialist tennis tournament

Photo: Pres Panayotov/Rex/Shutterstock

No, prime minister: Britain will punch below its weight for as long as it has minority government

Theresa May will have to work more collaboratively with her cabinet. Photo: Victoria Jones - WPA Pool/Getty Images

May plummets to victory: just how did she squander her majority?

Apparent consensus: Eurogroup finance ministers in Brussels are little more than a rubber stamp. Photo: Sander de Wilde/Corbis via Getty Images

What Britain's European Union negotiators can learn from the Greeks

Chris Bickerton

Photo: Cas Images/Snapstock

To beat terrorism, don't trash human rights—get to know human nature

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Photo: Yui Mok/PA Wire/PA Images

How Corbyn turned the tide for social democracy

The exit poll stunned the nation, by revealing Jeremy Corbyn's surge. Photo: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

All shook up: this election result upended stale assumptions about "centrist" politics

Whatever May believes, here are the five ideas that the Tory party urgently needs to understand

Regulars

Stephen Collins's cartoon: Media ghoulishness

Stephen Collins

The Prospect editorial: The election revealed that the elite was stuck in an echo chamber

Photo: National Maritime Museum, London

"Visitors will encounter a beguiling mystery": The best science exhibitions this month

From Mozart to the Merchant of Venice: the best opera this month

Thelma Cazalet-Keir was the first female MP to marry in the Commons chapel crypt. Photo: AP/Rex/Shutterstock

Parliamentary new boys and girls: What MPs wrote in their diaries after joining the Commons

"I'd make sure there is free LSD available for all courageous adolescents": if Carlo Rovelli ruled the world

Photo: Dom Domegg/Wikimedia Commons

Love classical music? Here's what to book at the Proms (and elsewhere) this month

Alexandra Coghlan

Photo: Paramount pictures

From found footage in Syria to erotic horror, the best films to see this month

Listen: Headspace #11—Game, set and match to the malcontents

Photo: Kourosh-Kerishi

"Our planet is getting worse—and fast": Naomi Klein on Trump, Lennon, and the last book that made her cry

Linkiamo by Jac Leirner, 1982. Picture courtesy of the artist, Fortes D'Aloia & Gabriel, and White Cube

From Rembrandt to revolution: the art exhibitions to see this month

Emma Crichton-Miller

"A theatrical fusion of intelligence and visual pyrotechnics"—The best theatre this month

Michael Coveney

Speed Data: Why the Remain vote swung sharply—while Leave voters stayed put

Can you crack our crossword? The Generalist by Didymus: issue 256

Test your wits: Puzzles and Enigmas by Barry R Clarke, issue 256

Opinions

Screen shot of "No to THAAD"

South Korean missile defence has prompted a middle-class boycott from Beijing

Protestors against Brexit—but could it be stopped? Photo: PA

Now is the time to fight against a destructive Brexit

Corbyn is photographed by the media following the election result. Photo: PA

Journalists' lack of curiosity about Corbyn was professional malpractice

The attacks on Borough Market provide an opportunity to reflect on what works—and what doesn't. Photo: PA

I used to head Prevent—here's why the program shouldn't focus on Islam

The worst aspect of Tim Farron's leadership was the way he left it

How the DUP has fought to leave its roots behind

Protesters tear down a Trump wall at the Brandenburg Gate. Photo: Reuters

The world is fighting back against Trump's climate change policy

Bryony Worthington

We know that building walls of targets will not make anyone safe, but the need to feel part of a group is greater than the truth. Photo: PA/Prospect composite

The fantasy of Theresa May's immigration target

Lyndsey Stonebridge

Arts & Books

Relocation, relocation, relocation: Nobody has been better than the LGBTQ community at finding new parts of London to remould. Photo: Visit Britain/Ingrid Rasmussen

Goodbye to gay London?

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

The lost great modernist: the unpredictable life of David Jones

"She brings irony to a usually earnest form." Review: Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

Photo: CSA Images/PrintStock Collection

Some surgeons may be psychopaths—but that's no bad thing

Will Self's novel "Phone" is a charming, slapstick techno-thriller

"Radical and refreshing." Review—Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting by Martin Kemp and Giuseppe Pallanti

What is the relation between the leader and the led? Review: The H-Word by Perry Anderson

Why do traitors do it? A new book reveals the thinking behind wartime betrayal

Queen of alternative facts: Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. Photo: Evan Ucci/AP/Rex/Shutterstock

There's nothing new about post-truth politics

Simon Blackburn

"A rallying point for the disaffected." Book review: No is Not Enough by Naomi Klein

"There are too few champions for giving." Book Review: Our Common Good by John Nickson

Fiona Mactaggart

The faculty "doesn't work like we want it to." Review: The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber

Society and Culture

How emojis became the planet's lingua franca

English wine's bright future

The idea that all therapists are content is stubborn—but wrong

Could the edible drone be a humanitarian game changer?

Wendell Steavenson

What Brexit's unknowns mean for investors