You will notice a few changes to Prospect this month. The aim is to create a more elegant, reader-friendly magazine that confirms our place as one of the leading publishers of long-form current affairs journalism in Britain, but also enables us to widen our appeal. With the help of new investors, we intend to buck the recession and become bigger and better—bringing you a monthly package of the sharpest writing and most penetrating ideas about politics, culture and life. It's a good time to raise our game. As Toby Mundy argues inside, despite the general ascendancy of tabloid values, recent events seem to have created a countervailing flight to seriousness. The need for "thick description" without ideological blinkers is greater than ever and if newspapers can no longer consistently deliver it then it's up to magazines like this one to do so—with as much style and eloquence as we can.
Gordon Brown will lose the next election, but if he follows the advice of our cover story he will at least leave behind an institutional monument fit for this new "age of responsibility." The idea of compulsory civic service cuts against the grain of autonomy and self-realisation—the holy writ of liberal societies. But liberal societies cannot survive on liberalism alone. They need solidarity, service and authority too. There are many good arguments against mandatory civic service; apart from anything else it would be very expensive. But what if you could reduce the sense of isolation of millions of old people, provide an army of helpers in schools and hospitals and above all teach our anomic young people that they are part of something big and rather miraculous called British society? Wouldn't that be a better investment than replacing Trident?
