April 2021

April 2021 issue

The future of the UK seems perpetually in peril. As Andrew Marr argues in this month’s cover story, nothing is inevitable about Scotland’s breakaway, but London’s complacence is making it more likely. Also in this issue: Jill Rutter explores how...

Past issues

Politics

Break-up Britain: Andrew Marr on the imperilled state of the Union

Forget the froth. Deep tides are now pushing Scotland its own way, and washing against the very idea of the UK

Illustration by Ian Morris

Philosophy

Should a lawyer ever refuse to act in an unpleasant case?

Recent examples have brought an old legal and philosophical question back to the fore

Society

The duel: Is the pandemic killing God?

Lucy Winkett & James Ball

Photo: © Rex Shutterstock

Society

Homeschooling has revealed the absurdity of England’s national curriculum

My eight-year-old daughter is being called to spot expanded noun phrases. My 11-year-old son fills in checklists of "success criteria." Are we raising children or robots?

Photo: ESIREE MARTIN/AFP via Getty Images

Culture

The mind of God? The problem with deifying Stephen Hawking

A new biography argues the iconic physicist was shamelessly self-promoting and his reputation overrated

Up Front

Photo: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo

What you need to know about QAnon

In data: what are Britain’s fisheries gaining from Brexit?

David McAllister

Illustration by Ian Morris

Taxing more from the rich is difficult. This is how to do it

James Galbraith

© Bob Daemmrich / Alamy Stock Photo

There is no justification for borders in normal times. Post-pandemic, let’s abolish them

Maya Goodfellow

Letters: April 2021

Stephen Collins's cartoon: Boris—The Loveable Boy

Stephen Collins

Illustration by Ian Morris

Should a lawyer ever refuse to act in an unpleasant case?

Italian prime minister Mario Draghi. Photo: Independent Photo Agency Srl / Alamy Stock Photo

Salvation by banker: why Mario Draghi will not save Italy

Lucia Rubinelli

The duel: Is the pandemic killing God?

Lucy Winkett & James Ball

The Prospect editorial—when borders matter

Essays

Break-up Britain: Andrew Marr on the imperilled state of the Union

Illustration: © Hayley Warnham

RIP PLC: the rise of the ghost corporation

Photo: © Romeo Gacad/AFP via Getty Images

The battle to revolutionise food

Wendell Steavenson

French president Emmanuel Macron during a video conference on 23rd February 2021 © Abaca Press / Alamy Stock Photo

Emmanuel Macron promised a new French liberalism. Now he’s crushing it

How is Brexit for you?

Four Brexit red tape horror stories

Tunnel vision: Highway 60 is part of a burgeoning West Bank road network that’s being used to entrench Greater Israel © Quique Kierszenbaum

Road to nowhere: Behind the headlines in Israel/Palestine

Donald Macintyre

Critical Thinkng

Photo: © Rex Shutterstock

Homeschooling has revealed the absurdity of England’s national curriculum

How Adam Curtis gets into your head

Photo: ESIREE MARTIN/AFP via Getty Images

The mind of God? The problem with deifying Stephen Hawking

War among the ruins: Russian soldiers look on towards Palmyra in 2016. Photo: FRIEDEMANN KOHLER/dpa/alamy stock photo

Palmyra and the myth of civilisation

Illustration: Kate Hazell

What it's like to be a pigeon

For Queen and commerce: the Tory Party owes much of its success to synthesising opposing values. Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

Conservatism: the longest view

Ishiguro’s AI tale for our times

Arts & Books

How Adam Curtis gets into your head

Photo: ESIREE MARTIN/AFP via Getty Images

The mind of God? The problem with deifying Stephen Hawking

War among the ruins: Russian soldiers look on towards Palmyra in 2016. Photo: FRIEDEMANN KOHLER/dpa/alamy stock photo

Palmyra and the myth of civilisation

For Queen and commerce: the Tory Party owes much of its success to synthesising opposing values. Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

Conservatism: the longest view

Ishiguro’s AI tale for our times

Arthur Conan Doyle on the case Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

Arthur Conan Doyle and the case of the wronged Parsee

A statue of Robert —Clive of India—in Shrewbury Square, Shropshire, his home county Credit: Alamy

What the British Empire did to us

Alex Peake-Tomkinson

A computer simulation of a human embryo at six weeks Credit: Science Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo

The beautiful science of embryology

Jonathan Sumption in his Supreme Court Chambers in 2012 (Bobbo's Pix / Alamy Stock Photo)

Why Sumption-sceptics should look again

Photo: Ⓒ Matthew Brodie

The best classical and opera in the UK to stream this April

Alexandra Coghlan

Photo: Courtsey of Tobias Dautmas and Sony Pictures

The best films to stream in the UK this April

The Battersea poltergeist apparently haunted 15-year-old Shirley Hitchings and her family in South London from 1956 to 1968. Image: BBC

The best new podcasts in the UK this April

Charlotte Runcie

Brief encounter: Val McDermid

Netflix's new series The One imagines a future where your soulmate could be found through DNA matching Image: Netflix

The best television shows in the UK this April

Policy & Money

Photo: Brazil Photo Press / Alamy Stock Photo

From free exchange to gender equality

Ranil Jayawardena

The Department for International Trade. Photo: Joe / Alamy Stock Photo

Policy report: the fraught business of trading-off priorities

Boris Johnson greeting the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, back in January 2020. The government’s recent trade agreement with Egypt has paid little heed to its human rights abuses. Photo: Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock

No deal should trade away human rights

Emily Thornberry

Image: Klaus Ohlenschlaeger / Alamy Stock Photo

Is the stock market in a bubble? What investors need to know

Image: Paul Rushton / Alamy Stock Photo

How I learned to stop worrying and love the bubble

And Finally

Prospect puzzle and crossword—April 2021

Brief encounter: Val McDermid

There is a ritual to letter-writing—and letter-reading, too—that feels sacred. Illustration: Hannah Berry

How lockdown revived the handwritten letter

Hephzibah Anderson