December 2025 issue
Mark Wilding investigates Palantir’s power in the UK, Isabel Hilton examines the risks of Chinese renewables and Alona Ferber reports on the methods of Gaza’s destruction
Past issues
Illustration by Mike Turner. Sources: Alamy/Shutterstock
Government
How Palantir infiltrated the state
At a moment of national emergency, the government handed our data to Peter Thiel’s controversial company
Mark Wilding
People
Image: TT News Agency / Alamy
Jamaica Kincaid: ‘Books saved my life’
Franklin Nelson
Image: Andrew Crowley
Director of the Royal Ballet: I slept through Swan Lake
Lara Olszowska
Image: Jeffrey Keenan
Saving America, one embryo at a time
Emma Haslett
Image: Fran Monks
Sudhir Hazareesingh: Slave resistance was not exceptional
Samuel King
Image: Richard Bayfield / Alamy
The pro-Palestine activist expelled from university
Fin Carter
Columns
Scattergun: an AI video of Donald Trump in a fighter jet. Image by AI via YouTube
The politics of the potty
Sasha Mudd
Bill Keller’s diary: the Trump diaspora, infamous first families, and why London is the place for me
Bill Keller
Illustration by Andy Smith
Your chatbot doesn’t love you
Sarah Ogilvie
Illustration by Vincent Kilbride
Why journalism is our best defence against confidently wrong AI
Ethan Zuckerman
Keir Starmer faces a long journey to the next election. Image: Prospect / Alamy
Labour’s long, tortuous walk to 2029
Ben Ansell
Regulars
Letters: December 2025
Stephen Collins’s cartoon: Tim Davie and the BBC
Stephen Collins
Jill Lepore: People shouldn’t follow America’s example
Prospect Team
Features
Illustration by Mike Turner. Sources: Alamy/Shutterstock
How Palantir infiltrated the state
Mark Wilding
Illustration: Gregori Saavedra
China and the risks of renewables
Isabel Hilton
Illustration by Adam Howling
Disagreement among Friends: why Quakers are questioning God
Grace Spencer
Beit Hanoun, the northernmost city in the Gaza Strip. In 2017 the city population stood at 50,000; by the end of December 2023 it had reportedly all but gone. Image: Xinhua / Shutterstock
How Gaza’s cities were destroyed
Alona Ferber
An illustration showing a person reading a newspaper in a chair and with a globe for a head. Illustration by Prospect. Sources: Alamy / CSA
How to save the news
Marta Peirano
Illustration by Prospect. Source: Newscom / Alamy
What happened to Stephen Miller?
Jo-Ann Mort
Culture
An atomic bomb explosion at a test site in Nevada in 1957. Image: Galerie Bilderwelt / Getty Images
How the nuclear age bombed
Peter Hoskin
Frankfurt surveys the slurry pit. Image: Steve Pyke / Getty Images
It’s all bullshit
Jane O'Grady
Illustration by David McAllister / Prospect. Source: Alamy
The poetry of deafness
Ellen Peirson-Hagger
A couple on their way, no doubt, to a psychoanalysis session. Image: Shutterstock
The true meaning of love
Alex Peake-Tomkinson
Books in Brief: what to read this November
Image: Patrice Cartier / Bridgeman Images
Cadaqués is sublime. Stay away
JA Hopkin
Who are the big names amongst the big names? Image: BBC
How to spot a Traitor
Imogen West-Knights
Happy families: the cast of ‘The Assembled Parties’. Image: Helen Murray
Homebuilder: the vital theatre of Richard Greenberg
Kate Maltby
Image: Alan Mather / Alamy
Classical notes: On the move
Ian Bostridge
Lives
Illustration by Clara Nicoll
How do I help heal division as a priest?
Alice Goodman
Illustration by Clara Nicholl
Second life: My dental dignitas
Vitali Vitaliev
Illustration by Clara Nicoll
Why I took my boyfriend’s passport to the airport and lost my mind
Sarah Collins
Illustration by Clara Nicoll
I don’t want an AI friend!
Alice Garnett
My surprise correspondence with a stranger
Kiran Sidhu
Illustration of Tilly Lawless by Clara Nicoll
Sex work and modelling have a complex relationship
Tilly Lawless
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