The team discuss the turbulent year that's passed and give predictions for the year ahead, as well as sharing their highlights from Prospect in 2022.
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The following is a transcript of the episode:
Hello and welcome back to the Prospect Podcast, where we speak to the brightest minds and talk about the ideas that matter in politics, arts, and society. I’m Sarah, assistant editor at Prospect, and today I’m hosting a special podcast where I talk to our team about the good, the bad, and the ugly in the year that is coming to a close.
2022 has been a turbulent year around the world. Russia invaded Ukraine, the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion and record breaking heat waves were seen from the UK to India. At home, the revolving door of Number 10 saw three prime ministers in two months, as Liz Truss had the shortest tenure of any UK Prime Minister in history.
With all this rapidly disappearing in the rear view mirror, I asked the team what surprised them most about this year, and I also strong armed them into giving me some tentative predictions for the year ahead, as well as discussing their favorite Prospect pieces from 2022. First up, I spoke to our editor, Alan Rusbridger.
Sarah Collins: Hi Alan, how have you found your first year of editing Prospect?
Alan Rusbridger: Well it’s been great, I’ve enjoyed it hugely. I have to say, it’s been a steep learning curve working out how to edit a monthly magazine. I’ve never done a monthly magazine before, and in a year of such crazy political turmoil, trying to think of pieces six to eight weeks ahead when you don’t even know who’s going to be prime minister six to eight days ahead has its complications. But it’s been a year of richness and I’ve enjoyed it very much.
Collins: And is there a standout piece from the last year that we’ve published?
Rusbridger: Well, I’m going to cheat slightly and talk about a standout columnist, and that’s Ethan Zuckerman. He’s just a fantastically wise observer of the digital world, which is in constant flux and revolution—I mean, just look at Elon Musk over the last few weeks. And having somebody who understands that world, is immersed in it, lives and breathes it, thinks deeply about it, but who can also write clearly and simply for those of us who are fascinated by it, but are not, you know, coders, or brilliant engineers, is really valuable.
And he, for me, is a must read in every magazine and I think he should be read by everyone who’s trying to understand that crazy world.
Collins: A hundred percent. And Alan, what has surprised you this year? I know there’s been many strange events, but is there anything that stands out to you?
Rusbridger: Liz Truss. I mean, British politics as a whole has been extraordinary. I don’t think anyone at the beginning of the year could have predicted the turmoil and improbable chain of events that happened. Nobody could have seen that coming. But I still think, even after it’s all over and the dust has settled, the thought that Liz Truss would be Prime Minister of Great Britain is extraordinary.
I mean, you feel you have to sort of pinch yourself to ask did it really happen? Was it really that bad? And, although it’s thankfully over now, it sort of shakes your confidence in the robustness of political and otherwise institutions that such a thing could happen. And so many people applauded it at the time, who six months later realized what a terrible mistake. You know? How does that happen in a grown up democracy?
Collins: And my final question, the most difficult one, what do you think will happen next year that will surprise people?
Rusbridger: Well, I think I’m gonna be slightly optimistic and be optimistic about climate change. I’ve been thinking and writing about it for a long time, and I feel that a corner has been turned and that—you know, for years, just reading the British press, the deniers felt in ascendance. If they weren’t outright deniers they were skeptics—the subject never got the depth and the width and the range of, frequency of coverage that it merited. And I think, both in the media, I think that the tide has turned. People realise that this is now serious and has to be covered properly.
But also I think, you know, Joe Biden’s very boringly named Inflation Reduction Bill, but which was an extraordinary transformation in how you incentivize the infrastructure and the transformation that we’re going to need was amazing. And I think that will kickstart an awful lot of fiscal, financial, engineering, entrepreneurial effort. So, you know, that’s my prediction that actually we have turned a corner on climate change and I think the race to do what we need to do will now pick up pace.
Collins: Thanks so much, Alan.
Rusbridger: How about you? What do you think’s gonna happen? What was your prediction for next year?
Collins: Well mine is a little bit wacky, but I think that psychedelic drugs are gonna become approved as mental health treatments, because there’s a growing body of research that suggests that they can be really useful in things like severe depression and PTSD. And at the moment the UK has so much red tape around researching that and using those interventions, that it’s been really difficult to get them off the ground.
But I think there’s been a real tide turning—to borrow that phrase—in terms of public opinion around the role that psychedelics could have. And Sameer did a really interesting interview with Michael Pollan in our people section, where he was kind of saying that he thinks these kind of drugs have potential for people.
Rusbridger: Because I know nothing about psychedelic drugs I think of LSD, but are you talking about LSD, or are there much better on more modern drugs than LSD?
Collins: That’s a great question. I’m not a hundred percent sure exactly what kind of chemical compounds it would be. I don’t know if they’d just sort of say “take this LS D and have a trip”, or whether it would be that they’re using one specific component of it. I imagine more like that—Psilocybin I think is the name of the really promising compound.
Rusbridger: Okay, well that is truly interesting ’cause as a child of the whatever—I—was—I never know whether I was a child of the sixties or seventies or eighties—but nevertheless, LSD seemed to me something that was both quite glamorous, because of the people who took it, but also terrifying because of the people who jumped off buildings or car parks while they were tripping. But to see the sort of the circle turn, and now people are discovering its medical uses would be extraordinary, so let’s hope that it happens.
Collins: Thanks so much, Alan.
Now I’m delighted to be joined by our new arts and books editor, Peter Hoskin—or Pete, sorry, as I should say. How are you, Pete?
Peter Hoskin: I’m good thanks Sarah, yeah.
Collins: So my first question for you—I know you’ve only been at Prospect a short time so it’s a bit of a tricky question, but what was your favourite Prospect article from the last year and why?
Hoskin: Well, I guess I’m setting myself up for kind of a fall, because I’m picking an article by my predecessor in the books and arts role, Sameer Rahim. And it’s an article he wrote for the October edition of the magazine about Salman Rushdie—I think it was called “Demonizing Salman Rushdi”—and he wrote it obviously in the aftermath of the knife attack on Rushdi in New York.
I guess I should say why? Well, I think the reason I’m setting myself up for a fall by answering this way, is that Sameer set a very, very high bar. He’s a tremendously good editor, but he’s also a tremendously good writer, and fundamentally this was a very, very, very well written piece. I mean, I’ve got a copy in front of me, there’s a line…so Sameer writes about hearing the news of Rushdie’s…the violent attack on his life and he says “hearing the news, I felt the dreadful sense of a tragic destiny fulfilled, for these were further brutal blows at a slow motion assassination begun 30 years ago”.
I mean, this is just lovely prose, frankly. And obviously he’s referring to the fact that Rushdie had a fatwa taken out on his life decades previously because of the publication of The Satanic Verses, and then that’s what the article becomes. it’s about Rushdie obviously, but it’s also about The Satanic verses and about Sameer’s own existence alongside The Satanic Verses.
And I think, like all great criticism, it’s very personal actually. We have this pretence that really good criticism should be objective and it’s not actually. Sameer brings his own life, he tracks his life against the life of The Satanic Versus, the fatwa, growing up in that environment and how it’s overlapped with his life as well.
So there’s this great story about when he was at—sorry, I forget whether it’s Cambridge or Oxford, I think it was Cambridge—but basically The Satanic Versus came up in his classes and it became this weird factor in the conversations that he was having with his tutors and eventually led to him getting an offer from MI6 I think it was, who approached him saying “you could be very useful for us because you can move between worlds much like Rushdi can”.
But so, through this very personal narrative, I think Sameer arrives at…there some very, very clever truths about The Satanic Verses. This is not something that he sort of judged in advance of reading the book, this is something that’s developed over years and years of reading The Satanic Verses, but reading the rest of Rushdie’s work and literature in general. So Sameer, you know, spans across both the good and the bad—this is criticism, you know, this is something that he’s developed over years and years and years. I genuinely think it’s like a masterpiece of its time.
Collins: I completely agree, to the extent that I think you and I had a slight argument in the office about who was gonna get to choose that as their main piece, or maybe it wasn’t you and there were multiple members of the team.
Hoskin: I think, in my defence, I think you may have had the argument with our colleague David McAllister, who also wanted to pick this. And I only discovered afterwards that he wanted to pick this, so there were at least three of us who wanted to pick this piece.
Collins: Wow, quite a recommendation given how many different pieces we published. The next question is a difficult one. I would say these questions get more difficult as they go along. Everybody else had to do this last year, so they’re prepared for it. But I’ll level this one at you now, Pete. What event, political or cultural, surprised you from this year?
Hoskin: I don’t think this was too difficult because I’m gonna give a really dumb answer. Although, on the surface it’s dumb, I’d like to think it’s not too dumb. The cultural event of 2022 that surprised me, Sarah, was the release of Top Gun: Maverick.
I was fully prepared to enjoy this movie. I like Tom Cruise—with all the caveats, you know, I like Tom Cruise to a point. I like the Mission Impossible movies, for example. I think he brings this kind of full—hearted stunt—doing action man type persona to those films. And I knew that that’s what we could expect from a Disney Top Gun film. What I did not expect was something just quite so—I suppose “wowing” is the word. “Awesome” in the fullest sense of that word might also be the word.
This was—we see actors in planes, no CGI for the most part, I think almost all of it was no CGI. It was planes flying at very, very high speeds in the sky doing balletic things. I genuinely found it wowing. I haven’t had that experience from cinema for a long time. I’ve seen lots of good movies and I’m not someone— applying caveats here—I’m someone who’s seen all the great Swedish films and French films and all this kind of stuff, so I’m not given just to action cinema. But this genuinely, to me, felt primal and it felt primordial. It felt like a birth of cinema type thing, like here was something entirely new. And I imagine actually it’s how audiences must have felt a little bit when, you know, at the birth of cinema with all your people like the The Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès, and people were just strapping cameras on things and trying things out, and that’s what Top Gun: Maverick almost literally was. And it certainly felt like they’d strapped cameras on planes and tried it out. And the results are just astonishing. it’s something we’ve never seen before.
Collins: What another lovely, positive surprise. And finally, the most difficult question, although you’ve batted those two off no problem: what do you predict will happen in 2023 that will surprise people?
Hoskin: Okay so, I hate predictions. I’m afraid to say, I don’t really want to do this ’cause I hate predictions. So I think—I’ve been wrestling with this. Sorry, I’m gonna take you on a journey here, Sarah. ,
Collins: Let’s go.
Hoskin: I’ve been wrestling with this because, I think what will surprise people—obviously it has to be something that’s surprising enough to be surprising but the problem with that is it could also be dumb enough to make me sound really dumb if it doesn’t happen. And I’ve realized that the way I’ll get round is that I found a loophole, which is that I’m going to be very vague. So my prediction for 2023 is that something big will happen in the world of social media. I can elaborate on that, by the way.
Collins: Do you know what’s really funny about that? That was basically my prediction from last year and I also did it as a bit of a fudge. But I think you will have much better reasoning behind yours. Mine, but was a panic.
Hoskin: Okay. Well, I think I’m probably panicking too. it’s just like, what can I say? But I think your prediction in that case was totally spot on, in that 2022 was a big year for social media. I think when I say that though, it might not necessarily be for the reasons that people are thinking of. So at the moment Twitter getting a lot of attention, Elon Musk is obviously getting a load of attention and obviously, yes, it’s been a big year for Twitter, which has many millions of users, so that is a significant thing in the world of social media. I actually think it’s been a bigger year for two other companies.
One is TikTok, which has really, really solidified its status as…I sort of don’t know quite where it is in the world rankings, I know it’s touching YouTube type numbers, it’s not up near Facebook, I’d guess it’s like the fourth or third biggest social platform now, and it’s certainly solidified it standing as the most exciting one, and the one that people are talking about and congregating to.
But the other thing I think that’s happened this year is really interesting stuff in the world of Facebook. So, we saw, for example, the first decline in Facebook users earlier this year, where there was a massive crash in Facebook share price. You know, these were unprecedented things. And also just the sort of—I hate this phrase—but the mood music around Facebook, the move to Meta, people are asking whether Mark Zuckerberg is too hung up on this grand theory of the future.
People have left the company and have moaned about it, you know, so Facebook is feeling like it’s in a slightly bad place. And I guess that’s what takes me, I should say, that’s what confirms why you were right in 2022. And I think it’s why it takes me into 2023, because there are all these simmering problems and I just feel like 2023 will be the year where there is some form of great reset, because I think it needs to happen. And I think someone is going to take a drastic step and it’s either going to be a defensive step, say Facebook doing something to shore up these problems, or it’s gonna be a sort of offensive, aggressive step—say, the continued expansion of TikTok.
So, I think actually if I had to make my vague prediction a bit more specific, I could say something like, maybe Facebook will do something crazy like merge—I should be saying Meta here, the sort of parent company of Facebook—maybe they will do something crazy like, merge Facebook and Instagram to create one overwhelming social network. Maybe TikTok, on the sort of more positive side, maybe they will hit two billion users. ’Cause I think actually, last we heard, which was at the end of 2021, they hit one billion the quickest—and this is monthly active users—they hit it the quickest anyone really has, ever. Everyone assumes they’re at 1.5 billion now, I think they might hit 2 billion next year, which would also be the quickest anyone’s ever hit it. You know, just like phenomenal growth.
But I suppose my big, out of the ballpark type prediction, is that Apple will set up a social network. I think there’s a gap in the market and there are enough convulsion that Apple might step in. We’ve been seeing little aspects of social media in Apple’s releases over the last few years, even their music app and various apps have little touches of social. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a fully fledged Apple social network in 2023.
Collins: And do you think they’ll stick with their usual model of making everything around staying within Apple, for Apple users? It won’t expand to people who aren’t using Apple products?
Hoskin: Well, I think my immediate answer is yes, they will stick to what they do because that’s what everyone refers to the walled garden of Apple, and I think that’s what Apple tries to do. They try to keep you in their ecosystem, and that’s why they’d have a social network as well.
So you can have an iPhone, you can go on it, you can watch your movies on Apple TV, you can listen to your music on Apple Music, and you can also chat with your friends and share photos. I was going to say tweet out your thoughts, but you know what I mean, broadcast your thoughts on their own social network and you don’t need to go anywhere else.
But we have also seen a slight loosening of that. I remember Apple TV as an app several years ago, was only available on Apple devices, or you had to buy a physical Apple TV little box that went under your television. Whereas now, you can get Apple TV as an app—my Samsung TV has it built in, you can get it on an Xbox and things like that.
So I think there is a slight loosening. Obviously you need to be a part of the Apple ecosystem in the first place. So who knows, I guess is the answer. I feel like I’m analysing something I’ve just made up—it’s all guesswork.
Collins: You need to nail down those specifics of these hypothetical ideas, Pete.
Hoskin: Yeah, I’ll figure out the monthly subscription plan and everything—no, it’s a total guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised. And hopefully that’s a surprising enough prediction for the purposes of this podcast.
Collins: Thank you so much for joining us, Pete.
And now I’m absolutely delighted to be joined by Emily Lawford, who’s assistant editor. Emily, what’s your favorite Prospect article that we’ve published this year?
Emily Lawford: My favorite article was Tilly Lawless on the right to touch. Tilly is a sex worker and she was explaining that she thinks, with sex workers, everyone, well a lot of people, a lot of liberal people agree that sex workers are unfairly stigmatised, but she was arguing that clients are also unfairly stigmatised. A lot of people like to say “oh, I support sex workers”, but like to demonise their clients at the same time and say they’re all misogynists or disgusting. And she was arguing that a lot of people who are lonely or sexually marginalised, for a number of different reasons, just want to be able to have some human intimacy. And she often feels quite moved by her clients and feels really warmly towards them.
She wasn’t saying that every encounter she has is positive, but a lot of them are. And she was basically trying to argue that there’s dignity, not only in doing the work but in participating in it and in buying sex. And also, if we do really stigmatise buying sex, that does end up harming sex workers as well.
I’m not sure that I completely agreed with the whole piece, but I loved it because I thought it was so well argued. It was beautifully written. She’s such an eloquent writer, and I thought…I just really liked the way it really made quite a controversial argument so eloquently and with really lovely personal anecdotes. I found it quite a moving piece and exploring something that I don’t think has been written on very much.
Collins: I know this is very easily done, but I do think it actually did make me cry—the kindness with which she wrote about some of her clients.
So, my next question is: what event, political or cultural, surprised you this year?
Lawford: This year I was really surprised by the midterms, how well the Democrats did, relatively. I was completely expecting a wipe out. I can’t believe they held onto the Senate and in fact gained a Senate seat, until Kyrsten Sinema said she’s leaving the Democrats.
And the House—I was expecting a total wipe out, and they did lose a few seats, but much fewer than was expected. And it’s not like Biden’s had an amazing term so far at all. And you know, the economy’s terrible — it goes to show that the American people aren’t quite as in to the absolutely mad people, the election deniers and people who flirt with the far right, and that was comforting. And, you know, I was very happy with Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act earlier this year. It was positive and I was very pleased with it.
Collins: it’s really nice that we’ve had quite a few positive surprises this year. I don’t think that was the case last year. People have cherry picked the positive bits out of what’s been quite a turbulent year.
Finally, and probably the hardest question, what do you think will happen in 2023 that will surprise people?
Lawford: I am absolutely convinced that Borris and Carrie will divorce. I think that marriage is over. I think Boris is not an attractive man, but I can see that his power is attractive. I don’t mean to do her down, I think it’s really reasonable, she obviously really cares about certain things and when he was in charge of the country, or looking like he was about to be in charge, I could totally see the attraction there. But I think he must be a nightmare to live with now. Obviously he’s got more money, but I just think that’s a disaster. I saw a picture of them on holiday — he’s so much older than all her friends, I just think that’s over.
Collins: I do have to say that you made a rather tragic prediction last year that did turn out to be correct. Can you remind us what that was?
Lawford: I did think the Queen would die. And by the middle of the year, I thought maybe that’s not gonna happen. But then September — my birthday — it happened, and I was sad to be vindicated.
Collins: Thanks so much Emily for joining us.
So now I’m joined by our fantastic deputy editor, Ellen Halliday. Thanks so much for making time for this, Ellen. Can I just ask you, what was your favorite Prospect article from the last year and why?
Ellen Halliday: So there’s this one piece that we have that always sticks in my mind and I keep kind of coming back to. I joined Prospect about halfway through the year and, at some point in the summer, was able to sit in on this conversation between George Monbiot and Farmer Tom — Tom Martin — who writes one of our lives columns. And they were talking about the future of farming and George’s argument is that the climate needs us to end livestock farming altogether. And then farmer Tom himself farms livestock. So, it was a really lively debate, quite passionate on both sides. But what I loved about it, and what I think really came across in the written piece that we did from that conversation, was the respect that they had for each other.
I loved the way they both prepared. So I mean, George, he’s a professional and he’s been talking about these issues for decades now. And Tom, it’s his livelihood to farm. And he came with this folio of notes and questions that he had for George as well. And they just had a great conversation and a great debate, and I keep thinking about it still — the arguments they were both making.
And so that one’s really stuck in my mind and would highly recommend also — obviously reading the piece — but George’s book is great and really thought provoking. it’s called Regenesis — not a sponsored message from me, just a personal recommendation.
Collins: And did you enjoy charing that debate, or was it quite nerve wracking?
Halliday: I mean, I felt like my place there was just to act as a prompt really. they’re the experts, they’re the ones who we wanted to hear from, right? So I think those conversations that we do at Prospect — my role was just to set them off and then they’re away. And they were super nice, both of them, very kind and generous with their time, and with their spirit to each other and towards Prospect. So it was just great to chat to them really.
Collins: What events, political or cultural, surprised you this year?
Halliday: Something that I felt was kind of good news in a way, and therefore surprising in a year of absolute chaos and general disasters, was this piece of legislation passed in the US called the Inflation Reduction Act, which was basically a massive chunk of cash — 437 billion in total — but 369 billion dollars went towards emissions reduction measures. So there’s tax breaks on electric vehicles, there’s some investment in slightly unproven technology like carbon capture and storage, so that you’re basically throwing a lot of money at climate stuff. But I think what was interesting, is that it was done under the guise of this inflation reduction.
So kind of trying to link together the war in Ukraine, the economic crisis, with the climate crisis and policies to tackle that. And I just thought that was quite smart and I think it’s really got European leaders since then thinking about what they can do, and then thinking about smart ways to get climate legislation — which can be politically tricky — through.
So that was something that I didn’t have on my calendar, on my list of things that were going to happen, but it is kind of interesting and I think we’ll continue to have ramifications going forward into 2023.
Collins: And have you seen other examples of that trend? I mean, the energy security argument being made for reducing energy usage, which is something that climate advocates have been pushing for for years.
Halliday: Yeah, I mean I honestly think that most countries have not — or I was thinking that most countries have not — been brilliant at that, and I was thinking, why isn’t anybody making a case to drive down demand? But you sort of saw a bit of it in Germany with Robert Habeck, but actually they published some data that came out just a week ago or so, that looked at how demand has gone down for gas consumption and it’s gone down a lot in countries in like, yes, Germany, but also the Netherlands and France.
And that feels like some of that message has got through, and I’m interested to see how that plays out as well next year. Like, will that be able to be sustained? Could they build on that? Was it, you know, something that was temporary? I don’t know. But that’s something I’m definitely keen to find out more about.
Collins: And finally, I know this is a really difficult question and not one that members of the team enjoy having their answer dragged out of them by me, but what do you predict will happen in 2023 that will surprise people?
Halliday: Yeah, this is a really hard question, Sarah.
Collins: Jo [Murray] last year did so well, so no pressure. She predicted everything that basically happened, but no pressure.
Halliday: Yeah, I definitely don’t have Jo’s sage-like qualities. I don’t know, I mean, again, this is maybe optimistic, but there’s this plan to scrap a whole bunch of legislation that came through the EU and it’s thousands of laws. There’s a huge amount and some of it’s good, some of it — it’s a real mixture, but basically that piece of legislation is now at the report stage in the House of Commons, which means it’ll soon come up for its third reading and then would go on potentially to the House of Lords. But I’m going to say that all of that legislation is — I’m going to say that not all of that legislation is going to be scrapped.
So there’s like a thousand — with a climate focus — there’s more than a thousand pieces of legislation there that have kind of an environmental impact. And I think that there’s been a lot of discussion with the investment zones that Liz Truss and her government formulated about why they were problematic.
There’s been a lot of pressure from environmental groups about the need to protect some of these laws and keep them in place because of the impact that they have on nature protection and biodiversity and so on. So, I’m going to say that this plan to scrap legislation is not going to go ahead. it’s not going to go — by the time we get to December 2023, some of these laws, maybe most of these laws, will actually still be in place.
Collins: So, there will no be no promised bonfire of red tape that the Brexiters claim there would be?
Halliday: Not a bonfire. Maybe there’ll be a small candle.
Collins: A tea light?
Halliday: Yeah, I’m going to say that sense prevails and that all of the laws designed to protect the environment remain.
Collins: And now I’m delighted to be joined by our excellent production editor, David McAllister. He’s the person who keeps us all in line, making sure our copy’s in on time and on the page. So, David, what was your favorite Prospect article from the last year and why?
David McAllister: it’s quite a difficult question actually, but I think narrowing it, I really enjoyed Andrew Dixon’s article about, relabeling the Pitt Rivers Museum. Because we’ve been having a lot of discussions over the past couple years about the place of museums and about returning artifacts and it’s just interesting to see the work — not just about what we do with the objects, but how we interpret those objects as well and how we acquired them or where they came from and all that stuff.
What they’re doing at the Pitt Rivers Museum is relabeling all of their displays and having a conversation, not just about whether or not we give objects back, but how we interpret those objects and how we label them — literally label them and all that sort of stuff, which I think it’s all very — all has to be part of the same discussion at the same time.
Collins: Yeah, I actually went to the Pitt Rivers museum on Sunday, quite randomly. I was in Oxford and it did really make me think that the points made in that article are really needed, I think that article kind of said something new about the topic, which has been debated so much.
McAllister: Yeah, exactly. I think the real challenges that museums have — the sort of inconvenient truth of it, is that they are inherently colonial institutions. So this idea of ’oh, well, you know, we’ve got to decolonize them’ is kind of impossible really, because the only logical conclusion of that is to abolish them completely. Which very few people would support that position. So, changing the way we label institutions as they are at the Pitt Rivers is the start. Who knows where it’ll go, but I think these are the sort of difficult sort of middle ways we have to try and navigate with when we think about these institutions.
Collins: What event, either political or cultural, has surprised you from this year?
McAllister: I mean, I’ll maybe avoid some of the more obvious domestic surprises that we’ve had, cause I’m sure everyone will know what I’m talking about. So I think last year when we did this podcast, I mentioned about the election that Brazil had this year. And actually what surprised me about that election was how easily Bolsonaro basically conceded really. You know, there’s a few days where he didn’t say anything and people were worried that we were going to have a sort of repeat of Trump in the US. I mean, maybe that can still happen in the new year when Lula’s inaugurated. But yeah, I was quite surprised at how peaceful that transition has been so far. And it seems to be, in general, the election went quite peacefully. So that was — that’s a positive surprise, you could say.
Collins: And finally, the question that no one wants to answer, what do you predict will happen in 2023 that will surprise people?
McAllister: Well, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about — because obviously we had the Supreme Court ruling about whether or not the Scottish Parliament has the competency to unilaterally hold the independent referendum, which they said they didn’t. And now the SNPs tactics are probably going to change. But in the meantime, we’ve had six independent polls that show that the dial’s gone back in favor of independence for the first time in a little while.
So, I’m maybe predicting that this year, alongside seeing a more, a different direction for the SNP’s tactics, we might see independence reaching 60 per cent support for the first time ever. That’s my wager anyway.
Collins: And now I’m absolutely delighted to be joined by Jo, head of engagement and someone who’s quite a nerve—wracking guest to have on this podcast, because last year the prediction that she made that there would be war in Europe, turned out to be accurate. But, before we get onto our prediction, I’ll just run through the first question.
So, Jo, what was your favorite Prospect article from this year?
Jo Murray: My favorite article was an extract from Stu Hennigan’s Ghost Signs, which was a raw account of life below the poverty line in Leeds. It was a hidden world which he described so powerfully. He delivered food parcels to families in Leeds during the pandemic, and he was so shocked by the number of families with babies and young children who were relying on free food. It was a heart wrenching account of something that you just don’t think should or would be happening in Britain today, but sadly is. And there was a couple of lines which really stood out for me. He noticed a little girl when he was delivering food to a house — I’ll just read them out: “’Is that food?,’” she asks. I nod. ’ALL of it?’ I nod again. ’For US?’ She points to herself, eyes wide. ’YAYTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!’ She starts dancing and twirling around, clapping her hands like I’m Father Christmas giving her the gift she’s always wanted.” And for me, just the writing and being able to visualise the deprivation was really powerful and has stayed with me.
Collins: it’s definitely one of the most powerful pieces we’ve had this year, without a doubt. And Stu’s become a bit of an ambassador for us as well, hasn’t he, with events.
So, my next question is what event, political or cultural, surprised you this year?
Murray: Well, what I was surprised about — I wasn’t surprised about the Ukraine and Russia situation — what I was surprised about was the lack of a Russian breakthrough in Ukraine. I remember when it started, obviously, you know, people were expecting an imminent war, which then very sadly happened. But there was this expectation that they would be in Kyiv in days, and actually that didn’t happen. And Zelensky and the Ukrainians defied all expectations. And I was struck by the Russian military planning and capability. Troop morale appeared to be low, there were strategic mistakes, there was the blowing up of the bridge which was humiliating and Zelensky’s ability to use social media to have a presence on the international stage while he was in Ukraine, was so impressive. So that really did surprise me. Very sadly, of course, there were many cities and many towns that were occupied, but I did think that we would’ve seen Russian troops in Kyiv this year.
Collins: And Jo, my final question, what do you predict will happen in 2023 that will surprise people?
Murray: So, I don’t know whether it will actually surprise people, but I do think that — it’s again on Ukrainian — the Ukrainian Russian War, which I think will obviously, sadly continue. I have been reading a little bit about Russia and Iran doing deals, which we’ll see them support each other militarily and technically. And we are in this era of drone warfare, which is new and it’s reported that Iranian drones have been used to help guide artillery fire since September. And there have been reports in recent weeks about Russia and Iran having various deals. So, what does this mean for a Russian spring offensive?
We’re seeing Belarus and Russia talk and engage just last week, I think. And what’s the implications of a Russia—Iran pact for the stability of the Middle East? So I think that’s something that’s emerging. And I think in the spring it will be interesting to see how Russia responds to what has been, for them, I would imagine a disappointing military strategy in Ukraine.
Collins: Thank you so much, Jo. I really hope that things don’t take an even worse turn, but thanks for joining us and making time to speak to us today.
So, I’m delighted to be joined by our managing editor, Alex Dean. So, first of all, what was your favorite Prospect article from the last year and why?
Alex Dean: I think my favorite piece of all was Will Hutton on how Britain is heading for a perfect economic storm. It wasn’t the most reassuring piece we’ve run. I think the thing about it that really stuck with me was that it — I mean, the timing was quite lucky, really, because it went to press when Liz Truss was just coming to office and obviously talking all about the dash for growth and her prescription for turning around the lagging UK economy. And I thought that Liz Truss had basically exactly the wrong prescription for how to generate growth. But I think she was actually right that the UK does have a growth problem. Will’s piece gave a kind of progressive counterpart to Trussonomics. So he said ’look, the UK does have a problem with sluggish growth’.
I mean, it strikes me as good of a description as any for what politics is — the debate of how you distribute the proceeds of growth. And that’s a lot easier if you have proceeds of growth. So, I sort of really lapped up the piece actually. He talks about how we need to invest in our productivity capacity and, you know, with proper skills and proper infrastructure initiatives. And so I think that sort of just the timings of it and reading it as a sort of sane antidote to the Truss stuff that was happening at the time, sort of informed my outlook really.
Collins: And my next question is what event, political or cultural, surprised you this year?
Dean: I’ve been genuinely surprised by how little Covid has changed us as a society. When we were really in the throes of the pandemic, I genuinely believed that basically nothing would be the same again. I mean, the change was so extreme in 2020 and, you know, the basic way that society operates had been ripped up. And there was all a clap for carers and you knew that some of that was just the symbolism, but I thought if literally the whole country’s going out and banging the pots and pans, it’s going to have some lasting impact.
And I think a real shock for me was when I remember the first pay settlement for nurses after the peak of the pandemic. I think the government doesn’t actually set that, I think it’s some sort of pay review body, but the government makes a recommendation. And I remember the reports that it was recommending a 1 per cent pay rise for nurses and being — just looking at it and being like, that’s it for them. Just surely — I mean, we’ve come out of the pandemic, if it’s had any impact at all it must be that we value nurses more. And when they sort of just got away with it a bit — I don’t know what the final settlement was, but it wasn’t radically more — that was when I first started to think that actually, the pandemic hadn’t changed the way society was organised in the way that I thought it might.
And then this year, it’s just been much the same. So, I thought that going into the office — was that just going to stop and basically everyone’s going to be working from home? But I think footfall in cities is going back up slowly, and there’s been some change, but not as much as I anticipated. I mean, do you remember all the build back better stuff?
Collins: Yeah.
Dean: I think basically, society can react to trauma in two ways and it can either fundamentally change in response, or it can just — if something’s really, truly traumatic — society can just want to forget. And I think we’ve chosen to forget.
Collins: One hundred per cent, definitely. And I think I was really optimistic about the environment, because I was like ’oh, it shows this is what we can do in a mere month of lockdown’. I can’t remember the stats, but how much pollution went down and emissions went down and it felt like there was an opportunity for a new dawn and it just definitely hasn’t come.
And even on a personal level, I remember thinking during the pandemic ’oh, I’ll never have FOMO again. I’ll never fear missing out on things ever again because I’ve got used to this new life where you just live a simpler life and you celebrate what you have on a closer radius and things will be more local’. And that just definitely hasn’t happened at all. I feel like we’ve gone back almost harder into that kind of rushed, frenzied existence than before. But maybe in years to come change will come. I don’t know, maybe there’ll be a moment where we stop forgetting and we reflect on it. I mean, do you think that will happen?
Dean: Yeah, it might just be too soon. I mean, it was such an all-encompassing thing, touching every aspect of our personal relations and just literally our day-to-day movements. I just really wouldn’t have expected—if you’d have asked me in 2020 how things would be now, I really wouldn’t have expected them to have been so similar to 2019. There’s good and bad I suppose—there’s lots of things that I liked about the pre-pandemic world.
Collins: And finally, what do you predict will happen in 2023 that will surprise people?
Dean: So, I thought long and hard about this one, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think Boris Johnson might lose his seat. I mean, prediction? Maybe. I think I’ll go so far as to say I think it’s eminently possible. I think if you look at all the sequence of events that needs to happen, there’s a few combinations that need to come off. But basically I think each step in the chain is plausible.
So the first thing that needs to happen is that the privileges committee in parliament that’s investigating whether Boris Johnson deliberately misled the house with his statements on Partygate. Now if, like me, you think that Johnson basically definitely did mislead the house, then that’s sort of box one checked, right?
There’s also this other element people forget, which is—it’s not just about misleading, but whether you correct the record at the earliest opportunity, and he definitely didn’t do that. So, let’s take that as premise one, that he did mislead the house.
The next question is the composition of the committee. it’s actually got a Tory majority, but there’s some independent minded Tories on there. I mean, I’ve always quite liked Bernard Jenkin. You know, I differ from him politically, but I think he’s a fairly independent minded character. You only need a bare majority kind of thing — I don’t think the committee is full of stooges at all — I think they’ll, to be honest, I think they will conclude against Boris Johnson actually.
So the next question is what sanction they recommend. For this, for my prediction to be born out, they would have to recommend a suspension from Parliament of more than 10 sitting days or 14 days in total. Now, I personally think that that would be by no means too severe for the nature of the crime. I admit this is probably the weakest link in the chain, because you never know, you can’t know what sanction they’re going to advise.
But, if they do make that recommendation, then it goes to a vote of the house. And I think there, actually, I think the house would probably go with the recommendation of the privileges committee, because after all we’ve been through—I know this is a different tribe in number 10 now, and I know they’re going to want to put it behind them, but equally they’re defining themselves as being the grownups back in charge and it would be quite a serious decision for Sunak to whip his party against the findings of the independent privileges committee. It would be a serious decision. So, I think the house might go with the committee.
So, that then takes us into the territory of a recall petition, which requires 10 per cent of Johnson’s Uxbridge constituents to sign the petition. Over the course of weeks, they go to a signing station in Uxbridge and say they want there to be a by—election. Ten per cent, that’s got to be possible, hasn’t it? You know, it’s not loads.
And then, if all those steps happen, then looking at the poles, I think people will want to give the Tories a kicking, they might want to give Johnson a kicking. I can imagine him being turfed out of there.
Collins: Thanks so much for coming on, Alex.
Dean: Thanks, Sarah.
Collins: So, now I’m really happy to be joined by the legend that is Mike Turner. Mike is our art director. He’s responsible for all the amazing covers, including the one with the cat who had to be made fatter using Photoshop. Is that right, Mike?
Mike Turner: The fat cat — yes, that’s right. The cat called Hugo was photographed in the studio and then a retoucher altered the file and made him a bit fatter and a bit more bling.
Collins: That was my favorite cover of the year. Maybe instead of asking you what your favorite piece of the year is, I should first ask you what your favorite cover of the year was.
Turner: I think it’s the most recent, the German model for saving the NHS. I think it was a really strong concept and the colours really stand out on the news stand. I think the German flag is very strong, instantly recognizable and very graphic. So yeah, I really enjoyed that one.
Collins: Same. And what was your favorite piece from this year?
Turner: When you asked this question I couldn’t pick a particular essay or column. So one standout part of the mag for me is Steven Collins’ cartoon. I look forward to receiving his email every issue because it always makes us laugh in the office and really hits the mark as to a certain news event or lifestyle, an aspect of our lives that he picks up on and makes into a funny gag. So yeah, I really like Steven Collins’ artwork.
Collins: And what political or cultural trend or news event has surprised you this year?
Turner: Surprised me? I think the length of the conflict in Ukraine. I think it surprised me that it’s lasted as long. I wasn’t expecting it to, personally. And also the kind of the conversations it’s caused between governments and leaders and showing support for Ukraine and the obvious kind of trade conflicts that have come out of that as well.
I think it was obviously devastating and I was expecting it to be a kind of short conflict. But for me, I find it quite surprising that it’s still going and has a ripple effect across loads of aspects of our lives, like energy, food. So, I think for me, it’s the current conflict — hopefully be soon.
Collins: And what do you think will happen next year in 2023 that will surprise people?
Turner: One area I think we’ll hear a lot more about is AI and AGI, which is artificial general intelligence. I think it feels that it’s moving so fast and I’m sure people have seen the advances with the AI systems like DALL-E and DALL-E 2, where you type in a description of absolutely anything and within seconds, a series of images are created.
And it’s already causing conversations about copyright and the value of art in between artists and the commercial aspects as well. So, I think this will—I think it’s going to keep obviously advancing and it’ll be interesting to see what are the areas of our lives that it starts to become an aspect in.
Collins: Definitely, I’m really worried about it taking over my job to be honest—I hope that doesn’t happen.
Turner: I know, it is quite, it is quite scary. I mean, it’s obviously the main—the first area it seems to have affected is art. How long until you can say ’write me an article about X, Y, Z and it will instantly generate it? So yeah, I think it’s a very interesting and slightly scary area of technology.
Collins: That’s all from us. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today, and we look forward to seeing you again in 2023.
