The church tower of the village of Graun in South Tyrol sticks out of the frozen Lake Reschen reservoir. The village was destroyed in 1950, when a dam was built
BRITAIN
The Reith lectures turn cosmological
How time flies. It’s that moment in the year when the BBC announces its Reith lecturer. Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel was the choice for 2009—and, undaunted by Prospect’s revelation that he provided the writers of The Simpsons with the physical (if not moral) inspiration for Mr Burns, Sandel went on to deliver one of the best series of lectures in years. But, Prospect learns, despite the rigour of his logic, the philosopher took a lax approach to delivery deadlines, to the dismay of the Beeb’s team. This year Aunty’s mandarins have called time-out on philosophers, and gone for a universally admired scientist. Yet he’s also a man whose knowledge of cosmology, and thus the physics of time, could give even more imaginative reasons not to produce text at the anointed hour. Who is it? Time will tell.
Nesta’s charm offensive steps up a gear
Jonathan Kestenbaum, the embattled boss of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta), is still trying stop the Tories giving his ineffective quango the chop. Having lunched senior Tory strategists, he has now sent in his troops: the Conservative’s “Dyson review” of innovation—headed by vacuum magnate James Dyson—is currently being staffed by no less than three Nesta boffins. JK has cash to burn, having claimed in November that Nesta “doesn’t cost a penny of taxpayers’ money”—true, if you ignore its £300m endowment and millions raked in from government contracts. Sadly, organisational survival remains unlikely—as the Tories eye Nesta’s giant pile of cash. This may be the least of Kestenbaum’s worries, though. His annual report notes that he is accountable to the business secretary for ensuring his quango “distributes their funds with due regularity and propriety.” One can only wonder what Peter Mandelson will say when he hears of this secondment of manpower to his opponents.
How Mandy could hit Murdoch where it hurts
Nesta notwithstanding, the spat to end all spats is now brewing in the media world: Peter Mandelson vs Rupert Murdoch. The cause is clear: the Sun has turned on Labour, as the Gordon Brown handwriting debacle showed. Now Mandy needs Murdoch to put the gloves back on editor Dominic Mohan. But can he hit the Digger where it hurts—that is, in the share price?
Yes, if he follows Prospect’s counsel. Taking the Ashes from Sky is done, but Rupert would be loath to cut the handsome fees he charges to Virgin and BT for premium movies and sport. Fortunately, a regulatory ruling is pending here—so a word in the ear of Ofcom’s Ed Richards (a Mandelson protégé) could dent Murdoch’s wallet. Next up: the Competition Commission, now mulling making Sky offload (at a huge loss) shares in ITV.
The big prize, though, is finding devious ways to boost the troika of putative rivals Rupert fears: FreeSat, Project Canvas and the BBC. FreeSat is a satellite version of Freeview, which could win over customers fed up with paying Sky’s pretty penny. Project Canvas is a still more formidable threat: a service set to provide on-demand television from terrestrial broadcasters via the internet. The key to greenlighting Canvas lies with Michael Lyons’s BBC Trust; and it’s here that the spectre of a grand bargain lurks. Were Lyons to approve Canvas, a mischievous Mandy could then ratchet up the pressure on Murdoch still further by launching a strident defence of the BBC’s website—which Murdoch loathes, as its free news stops him making money from his papers online. A campaign to save the BBC’s “world class” site would win plaudits from geeks, shire Tories and Polly Toynbee alike. Who knows? As Murdoch and son’s hopes of internet domination—and their stock portfolio—went down, the Sun might even take a fresh look at its Labour friends.
INTERNATIONAL
Correction of the month
It’s red faces all round at the venerable Washington Post, thanks to this 3rd December correction. “A November 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke,” it noted. “The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number.” Just as well, really, given that the song in question was released in 1990.
Prospect’s poll gains a Russian outpost
What is the Russian for public intellectual? Fashionable website openSpace.ru is finding out, writes Susan Richards, with a version of Prospect’s own big brain competition (see p52). No orchestrated hijacking of the public vote has yet occurred—perhaps because the Kremlin is far too canny to stick its nose in. As a result, Putin has won almost no votes, while the man behind his “sovereign democracy” concept, Vladislav Surkov, has netted just 1 per cent. Results so far reflect the nation’s new diversity, with Viktor Pelevin—fantastical satirical novelist of the post-Soviet era—leading; pursued by youthful (yet banal) blogger Danil Shepovalov. Bunching in third are the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, imprisoned ex-oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and a prominent ultra-nationalist media oddball, Konstantin Krylov. The winner will be announced on 21st December.
ECONOMICS
Marxist economics is dying—literally
Who has suffered most from the global financial crisis? Even those losing their jobs and savings have been less badly hit than the crunch’s biggest victims: Marxist economists. First to pass away post sub-prime was Andrew Glyn, although not before seeing the chaos predicted in his magnum opus Capitalism Unleashed come true. Peter Gowan, a veteran of Verso and New Left Review, was next—at around the time the perpetual hegemony implied by his The Global Gamble: Washington’s Faustian Bid for World Dominance was looking decidedly shaky. Then, in 2009, both Giovanni Arrighi and Chris Harman joined them—the former having witnessed the Sino-domination predicted in Adam Smith in Beijing come increasingly true. These are great losses—but at least they died safe in the truth that capitalism was ruinous after all.
Dubai extra: everything is going to be just fine
As was pointed out in these very pages in early 2009, there’s no such thing as bad news in the United Arab Emirates—“harmful” news being prohibited by law. How, then, to cover Dubai’s financial meltdown? Enter the esteemed Emirates Business 24|7, who report the “UAE economy is solid,” “easier availability of financing will boost market,” and that the “UAE has the fourth-best tax regime in the world.” So intrepid is their investigative reporting that, where the rest of the world has foolishly been focusing on the collapse in Dubai stocks, Emirates Business is able to report that branded advertising on Dubai bus shelters is now at “100 per cent occupancy”—an enticement no sane investor could resist.
PREDICTIONS
2010: a year of elections, regime change and China
Prospect polled the great and good for their predictions for 2010—carefully anonymised for maximum honesty. A selection are below. Your contributions are welcome too (or e-mail 2010@prospect-magazine.co.uk.) We’ll publish the best suggestions:
• Ed Balls moves to the IMF, while Harriet Harman leads Labour.
• Kim Jong-il, a Castro and a Rolling Stone die. Lockerbie bomber Mohmed Al Meghari is in rude health come 2011.
• David Cameron’s popularity dips below 30 per cent by Christmas. David Davis throws down a gauntlet: casus belli to be decided.
• Spotify goes bust, 1m Kindles are sold, and an iPhone virus spreads.
• Frank Field leads a Tory “broken society” review, while two senior Labour cabinet members accept Cameron roles.
• Cliff Richard’s final Christmas number one sets the Koran’s medina sura to a traditional melody. Effigies are burned.
• Republicans retake the House, but not the Senate. Rahm Emanuel leaves.
• Obama “redeploys” (sacks) all three “special envoys”—Dennis Ross, George Mitchell, and Richard Holbrooke.
• Ian McEwan wins the Wodehouse comic fiction prize for his climate change novel.
• David Lammy will announce plans to run as mayor. Boris Johnson will not.
• Obama moves troops from Afghanistan to Iraq, as Kurdish security worsens.
• The Stephen Fry backlash suffers a backlash—with live Twitter commentary from Stephen Fry.
• Alex Ferguson quits, Martin O’Neill arrives. Portsmouth or West Ham go bust.
• Radiohead’s new album Bad Pilchard is sold as an insert in a Chomsky essay.
• The dollar drops by 10 per cent.
• A Twitter outrage campaign leads to a vigilante mob burning down the house of a prominent media commentator.
• After much horse trading, Tony Blair is announced as Belgium’s new president.
BRITAIN
The Reith lectures turn cosmological
How time flies. It’s that moment in the year when the BBC announces its Reith lecturer. Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel was the choice for 2009—and, undaunted by Prospect’s revelation that he provided the writers of The Simpsons with the physical (if not moral) inspiration for Mr Burns, Sandel went on to deliver one of the best series of lectures in years. But, Prospect learns, despite the rigour of his logic, the philosopher took a lax approach to delivery deadlines, to the dismay of the Beeb’s team. This year Aunty’s mandarins have called time-out on philosophers, and gone for a universally admired scientist. Yet he’s also a man whose knowledge of cosmology, and thus the physics of time, could give even more imaginative reasons not to produce text at the anointed hour. Who is it? Time will tell.
Nesta’s charm offensive steps up a gear
Jonathan Kestenbaum, the embattled boss of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta), is still trying stop the Tories giving his ineffective quango the chop. Having lunched senior Tory strategists, he has now sent in his troops: the Conservative’s “Dyson review” of innovation—headed by vacuum magnate James Dyson—is currently being staffed by no less than three Nesta boffins. JK has cash to burn, having claimed in November that Nesta “doesn’t cost a penny of taxpayers’ money”—true, if you ignore its £300m endowment and millions raked in from government contracts. Sadly, organisational survival remains unlikely—as the Tories eye Nesta’s giant pile of cash. This may be the least of Kestenbaum’s worries, though. His annual report notes that he is accountable to the business secretary for ensuring his quango “distributes their funds with due regularity and propriety.” One can only wonder what Peter Mandelson will say when he hears of this secondment of manpower to his opponents.
How Mandy could hit Murdoch where it hurts
Nesta notwithstanding, the spat to end all spats is now brewing in the media world: Peter Mandelson vs Rupert Murdoch. The cause is clear: the Sun has turned on Labour, as the Gordon Brown handwriting debacle showed. Now Mandy needs Murdoch to put the gloves back on editor Dominic Mohan. But can he hit the Digger where it hurts—that is, in the share price?
Yes, if he follows Prospect’s counsel. Taking the Ashes from Sky is done, but Rupert would be loath to cut the handsome fees he charges to Virgin and BT for premium movies and sport. Fortunately, a regulatory ruling is pending here—so a word in the ear of Ofcom’s Ed Richards (a Mandelson protégé) could dent Murdoch’s wallet. Next up: the Competition Commission, now mulling making Sky offload (at a huge loss) shares in ITV.
The big prize, though, is finding devious ways to boost the troika of putative rivals Rupert fears: FreeSat, Project Canvas and the BBC. FreeSat is a satellite version of Freeview, which could win over customers fed up with paying Sky’s pretty penny. Project Canvas is a still more formidable threat: a service set to provide on-demand television from terrestrial broadcasters via the internet. The key to greenlighting Canvas lies with Michael Lyons’s BBC Trust; and it’s here that the spectre of a grand bargain lurks. Were Lyons to approve Canvas, a mischievous Mandy could then ratchet up the pressure on Murdoch still further by launching a strident defence of the BBC’s website—which Murdoch loathes, as its free news stops him making money from his papers online. A campaign to save the BBC’s “world class” site would win plaudits from geeks, shire Tories and Polly Toynbee alike. Who knows? As Murdoch and son’s hopes of internet domination—and their stock portfolio—went down, the Sun might even take a fresh look at its Labour friends.
INTERNATIONAL
Correction of the month
It’s red faces all round at the venerable Washington Post, thanks to this 3rd December correction. “A November 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke,” it noted. “The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number.” Just as well, really, given that the song in question was released in 1990.
Prospect’s poll gains a Russian outpost
What is the Russian for public intellectual? Fashionable website openSpace.ru is finding out, writes Susan Richards, with a version of Prospect’s own big brain competition (see p52). No orchestrated hijacking of the public vote has yet occurred—perhaps because the Kremlin is far too canny to stick its nose in. As a result, Putin has won almost no votes, while the man behind his “sovereign democracy” concept, Vladislav Surkov, has netted just 1 per cent. Results so far reflect the nation’s new diversity, with Viktor Pelevin—fantastical satirical novelist of the post-Soviet era—leading; pursued by youthful (yet banal) blogger Danil Shepovalov. Bunching in third are the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, imprisoned ex-oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and a prominent ultra-nationalist media oddball, Konstantin Krylov. The winner will be announced on 21st December.
ECONOMICS
Marxist economics is dying—literally
Who has suffered most from the global financial crisis? Even those losing their jobs and savings have been less badly hit than the crunch’s biggest victims: Marxist economists. First to pass away post sub-prime was Andrew Glyn, although not before seeing the chaos predicted in his magnum opus Capitalism Unleashed come true. Peter Gowan, a veteran of Verso and New Left Review, was next—at around the time the perpetual hegemony implied by his The Global Gamble: Washington’s Faustian Bid for World Dominance was looking decidedly shaky. Then, in 2009, both Giovanni Arrighi and Chris Harman joined them—the former having witnessed the Sino-domination predicted in Adam Smith in Beijing come increasingly true. These are great losses—but at least they died safe in the truth that capitalism was ruinous after all.
Dubai extra: everything is going to be just fine
As was pointed out in these very pages in early 2009, there’s no such thing as bad news in the United Arab Emirates—“harmful” news being prohibited by law. How, then, to cover Dubai’s financial meltdown? Enter the esteemed Emirates Business 24|7, who report the “UAE economy is solid,” “easier availability of financing will boost market,” and that the “UAE has the fourth-best tax regime in the world.” So intrepid is their investigative reporting that, where the rest of the world has foolishly been focusing on the collapse in Dubai stocks, Emirates Business is able to report that branded advertising on Dubai bus shelters is now at “100 per cent occupancy”—an enticement no sane investor could resist.
PREDICTIONS
2010: a year of elections, regime change and China
Prospect polled the great and good for their predictions for 2010—carefully anonymised for maximum honesty. A selection are below. Your contributions are welcome too (or e-mail 2010@prospect-magazine.co.uk.) We’ll publish the best suggestions:
• Ed Balls moves to the IMF, while Harriet Harman leads Labour.
• Kim Jong-il, a Castro and a Rolling Stone die. Lockerbie bomber Mohmed Al Meghari is in rude health come 2011.
• David Cameron’s popularity dips below 30 per cent by Christmas. David Davis throws down a gauntlet: casus belli to be decided.
• Spotify goes bust, 1m Kindles are sold, and an iPhone virus spreads.
• Frank Field leads a Tory “broken society” review, while two senior Labour cabinet members accept Cameron roles.
• Cliff Richard’s final Christmas number one sets the Koran’s medina sura to a traditional melody. Effigies are burned.
• Republicans retake the House, but not the Senate. Rahm Emanuel leaves.
• Obama “redeploys” (sacks) all three “special envoys”—Dennis Ross, George Mitchell, and Richard Holbrooke.
• Ian McEwan wins the Wodehouse comic fiction prize for his climate change novel.
• David Lammy will announce plans to run as mayor. Boris Johnson will not.
• Obama moves troops from Afghanistan to Iraq, as Kurdish security worsens.
• The Stephen Fry backlash suffers a backlash—with live Twitter commentary from Stephen Fry.
• Alex Ferguson quits, Martin O’Neill arrives. Portsmouth or West Ham go bust.
• Radiohead’s new album Bad Pilchard is sold as an insert in a Chomsky essay.
• The dollar drops by 10 per cent.
• A Twitter outrage campaign leads to a vigilante mob burning down the house of a prominent media commentator.
• After much horse trading, Tony Blair is announced as Belgium’s new president.
