Can it really be less than six months since Theresa May resigned? (Let alone barely a year on from when she won a vote to challenge her leadership.)
We come to the close of 2019 mere weeks after a general election which saw Boris Johnson’s Conservatives achieve a majority of 78. The new year looks set to open, then, with the end of the beginning when it comes to Brexit: we are now, we must assume, leaving on January 31.
But that doesn’t mean the debates that dogged May’s premiership are done with. Nor does the Conservatives’ majority ensure smooth sailing in Parliament. As Rafael Behr writes in our special winter double issue, the turbulent forces currently reshaping British democracy have deeper, and longer, roots.
The writing you loved
It’s been a record-breaking year for readership of Prospect online. Alex Dean has continued to lead our coverage of Brexit, with pieces on “Project Fear” and Alex’s own interview with Ivan Rogers among our most-read in 2019. Longer reads by Richard Evans and Peter Foster also found wide audiences online—highlighting our readers’ appetite for in-depth analysis that goes beyond the day-to-day churn of the headlines.That type of zoomed-out thinking also informed our most popular piece of the year: our 2019 World’s Top Thinkers. Whether you agreed with our choices or enjoyed writing in to tell us how wrong we were, we were delighted by the engagement and discussion the list provoked—and look forward to having more office arguments over Jordan Peterson in 2020.
In Arts and Culture, meanwhile, our new staff member Rebecca Liu wrote and commissioned a range of fresh, exciting essays—particular favourites include her piece on the Museum of Neoliberalism and Nathan Ma’s essay on European identity.
Your top culture piece of the year, however, was Caspar Salmon’s Cats review, which unfortunately lead this editor to go and see it in the cinema. If you haven’t made the trip yet—don’t.
A look ahead
Foresight is 2020—and aside from our contributors' new ideas for the new decade, we’re always keen to hear more about your thoughts, comments and ideas for coverage. As editors, we can select the themes that we think are most pressing—from climate change to Britain in the world—but it’s the insight and intelligence of our readers that makes Prospect what it is.Drop us a comment below or ping us @prospect_uk on Twitter to keep the conversation going. And a happy new year!
