A new $25m attraction opened in Tennessee on 9th April, which aims to give people an insight into what it was like to sail on the ill-fated Titanic
BRITAINTime to experience the joy of cabinet-making With election predictions ranging from outright victories, to Lib-Lab pacts, Lib-Con coalitions, and even a government of national unity—Prospect introduces a new parlour game for our uncertain times: Fantasy Cabinet. Who is your dream team? For our treasury, Adair Turner’s spirited attacks on “socially useless” banks nudge him ahead of Saint Vince Cable. Even if Nick Clegg doesn’t win he is surely still worth a place as home secretary. Business titans and celebs would be welcome: what of Richard Branson at biz, Bob Geldoff at DfID, Emma Thompson at culture, or Jamie Oliver at health? Political campaigner Heather Brooke could clean up parliament, and a spin doctor dream team of Charlie Whelan and ex-red-top spiv Andy Coulson could keep the press in check. To top it all, Lord Mandelson, long denied his dream, could become foreign secretary. It would be Gordon Brown’s final legacy: a cabinet of all the talents. Nick Clegg: hero of the Nation Has an entryist plot to take over Britain been hatched at the heart of America’s left-wing establishment? Perhaps so. The Nation is the US’s oldest continuously published weekly magazine, founded in 1865. But to the celebrated list of progressive scribes who have earned their spurs there—including Naomi Klein, Christopher Hitchens and Calvin Trillin—must now be added another name: Nick Clegg. Clegg, who recently admitted being “very, very left wing” when younger, interned at the magazine in 1990, during Hitchens’s time there. But that is not all: a year earlier one Ed Miliband also joined their internship programme. Given both now stand at least a fleeting chance of being Britain’s next PM, The Nation itself could gain some influence on the next government. A friend inside the magazine tells Prospect both men spent time laboriously fact-checking articles—good training for putting Britain’s dubious public finances back in order. Whatever happened to the Tory living wage? Labour’s 2010 manifesto signed the party up to a living wage of £7.60 for all central government workers, as Maurice Glasman and Phillip Blond mention in their debate: “Who will really change Britain?” (p26). Curiously, this March David Cameron was all set to launch the same radical policy—but it never happened. His strategist Steve Hilton visited the campaign group London Citizens, hinting that Cameron would like to announce a Tory living wage with them within weeks. To the dismay of the Citizens, however, a call then came from Conservative HQ, rudely cancelling Cameron’s visit at the last minute. There was also no sign of the policy in the Conservative manifesto. So did Cameron bottle it? Or is it just that Steve Hilton’s advice is now no longer being heeded? Extra time for a hung parliament Hung parliaments are in the air, along with red faces among the Sir Humphreys as they attempt to figure out how to manage the muddle that will follow if the election is a messy draw. In February, top mandarin Gus O’Donnell went in front of a select committee with a document suggesting that—as usual—there would only be a mere six days between the end of the election and the recall of parliament. Cue panic in Whitehall, as it gradually dawned on worried officials that six days was not nearly long enough for the complex negotiations that would ensue if no party won an outright majority. Even worse, such a scenario risked drawing in higher powers: if no government can be formed, the Queen must get involved. Wheels duly turned, and at the end of March the press was briefed that a more generous 18 days would be allowed for Brown, Cameron and Clegg to fight it out. Long enough to avoid unduly bothering Her Majesty, we hope. EUROPEAngela’s ashes April was “blame Eyjafjallajökull” month, as Iceland’s ash cloud disrupted travel, made a cottage industry of stories of transcontinental train trips, and delayed stocks of everything from Kenyan flowers to Israeli avocados. But who else suffered? Angela Merkel, for one, writes Matthew Tempest. Visiting California when the ash popped up, Merkel was diverted first to Lisbon, then Rome. Emergency plans then kicked in, and her safe passage home was overland—until the coach got a flat tyre in an Italian village, leaving Europe’s most powerful politician stuck. Thankfully locals arrived before the mechanics, unfurling a “HELLO ANGELA” banner to make sure her ego wasn’t punctured too. Dutch Labour pains Labour could lose an election and its leader by June. But, if it does, Britain’s left will be far from alone in feeling unloved, leaderless and out of power. In February, the hugely unpopular Dutch Labour party resorted to a form of electoral suicide, dramatically leaving Holland’s ruling coalition, partially collapsing the government. Its leader (and one-time Prospect contributor) Wouter Bos then quit to spend more time with his family, raising eyebrows in the Dutch media. With the Dutch general election coming up this summer, the big winners are parties of the right, and in particular the charismatic libertarian iconoclast Geert Wilders. Wilders was once banned from entering Britain, but his attacks on multiculturalism and extremist Islam chime with voters at home, and he now looks odds-on to enter government in June’s poll. Yet things have not turned out entirely badly for Labour. Having seen one leader leave, they immediately found a hugely popular replacement—Job Cohen, the mayor of Amsterdam—and have promptly shot back up in the polls. An intriguing precedent for comrades back in Britain, perhaps. CULTUREPhilosophical footballers Only days after the election ends, on 9th May, another epic contest kicks off: the Philosopher’s Football Match, a real-life recreation of the 1972 Monty Python sketch pitting German philosophers against Greeks. The Python version was notable for its inaction—both sides philosophised without much football being played. This time is different, as Nietzsche Albion (managed by Prospect contributor AC Grayling) take on Socrates Wanderers (led by former England manager Graham Taylor). The Python match saw tempers boil over, with referee Confucius forced to give Friedrich Nietzsche a yellow card. Rough tackles will be kept in check this time, however, by referee (and Prospect’s in-house philosopher) Nigel Warburton; a suitably liberal figure to keep order between the Greek and German traditions. The match’s weakness could be its length: a full 90 minutes may prove taxing for those of philosophical rather than athletic pedigree. As Warburton told us: “‘Like most notions dreamed up by philosophers, the match looks terrific in theory. But whether a ragbag of ageing thinkers can really produce a decent match remains to be seen.” technology Forget the polls: it’s Twitter wot predicted it Can Twitter predict the future? Yes, according to a US paper published in March. Two computer researchers waded through 2.9m messages to track mentions of 24 movies. Tallying the tweets almost perfectly predicted box-office performance, with an accuracy of over 97 per cent in the opening weekend. The results show how social media can quantify normally intangible “buzz”—and suggests other intriguing uses, such as tracking mentions of a certain “Nick Clegg” during television debates. FINANCESoros turns his guns on economists They have faced a global recession, media derision and even the Queen asking why they didn’t see it all coming. But now economists have a new foe: billionaire George Soros. The Hungarian philanthropist is incensed with the dismal science, and has coughed up $50m to fund a new think tank, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, to shake up the discipline. That said, Soros knows his targets to be rational men, so last month he wooed 150 of the world’s best with a star-studded four-day seminar at King’s College, Cambridge, complete with lavish dinners—and, of course, time for earnest self-criticism led by nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Breast-beating apart, one problem did raise eyebrows, according to Prospect’s resident mole: a poor gender equilibrium. And even the largely male gathering looked positively balanced next to the institute’s advisory board, featuring more than two dozen grey-haired embodiments of homo economicus, but not even one femina economica. A regrettable oversight—but one that perhaps confirms Soros’s complaint that economics itself lacks diversity of thinking.
BRITAINTime to experience the joy of cabinet-making With election predictions ranging from outright victories, to Lib-Lab pacts, Lib-Con coalitions, and even a government of national unity—Prospect introduces a new parlour game for our uncertain times: Fantasy Cabinet. Who is your dream team? For our treasury, Adair Turner’s spirited attacks on “socially useless” banks nudge him ahead of Saint Vince Cable. Even if Nick Clegg doesn’t win he is surely still worth a place as home secretary. Business titans and celebs would be welcome: what of Richard Branson at biz, Bob Geldoff at DfID, Emma Thompson at culture, or Jamie Oliver at health? Political campaigner Heather Brooke could clean up parliament, and a spin doctor dream team of Charlie Whelan and ex-red-top spiv Andy Coulson could keep the press in check. To top it all, Lord Mandelson, long denied his dream, could become foreign secretary. It would be Gordon Brown’s final legacy: a cabinet of all the talents. Nick Clegg: hero of the Nation Has an entryist plot to take over Britain been hatched at the heart of America’s left-wing establishment? Perhaps so. The Nation is the US’s oldest continuously published weekly magazine, founded in 1865. But to the celebrated list of progressive scribes who have earned their spurs there—including Naomi Klein, Christopher Hitchens and Calvin Trillin—must now be added another name: Nick Clegg. Clegg, who recently admitted being “very, very left wing” when younger, interned at the magazine in 1990, during Hitchens’s time there. But that is not all: a year earlier one Ed Miliband also joined their internship programme. Given both now stand at least a fleeting chance of being Britain’s next PM, The Nation itself could gain some influence on the next government. A friend inside the magazine tells Prospect both men spent time laboriously fact-checking articles—good training for putting Britain’s dubious public finances back in order. Whatever happened to the Tory living wage? Labour’s 2010 manifesto signed the party up to a living wage of £7.60 for all central government workers, as Maurice Glasman and Phillip Blond mention in their debate: “Who will really change Britain?” (p26). Curiously, this March David Cameron was all set to launch the same radical policy—but it never happened. His strategist Steve Hilton visited the campaign group London Citizens, hinting that Cameron would like to announce a Tory living wage with them within weeks. To the dismay of the Citizens, however, a call then came from Conservative HQ, rudely cancelling Cameron’s visit at the last minute. There was also no sign of the policy in the Conservative manifesto. So did Cameron bottle it? Or is it just that Steve Hilton’s advice is now no longer being heeded? Extra time for a hung parliament Hung parliaments are in the air, along with red faces among the Sir Humphreys as they attempt to figure out how to manage the muddle that will follow if the election is a messy draw. In February, top mandarin Gus O’Donnell went in front of a select committee with a document suggesting that—as usual—there would only be a mere six days between the end of the election and the recall of parliament. Cue panic in Whitehall, as it gradually dawned on worried officials that six days was not nearly long enough for the complex negotiations that would ensue if no party won an outright majority. Even worse, such a scenario risked drawing in higher powers: if no government can be formed, the Queen must get involved. Wheels duly turned, and at the end of March the press was briefed that a more generous 18 days would be allowed for Brown, Cameron and Clegg to fight it out. Long enough to avoid unduly bothering Her Majesty, we hope. EUROPEAngela’s ashes April was “blame Eyjafjallajökull” month, as Iceland’s ash cloud disrupted travel, made a cottage industry of stories of transcontinental train trips, and delayed stocks of everything from Kenyan flowers to Israeli avocados. But who else suffered? Angela Merkel, for one, writes Matthew Tempest. Visiting California when the ash popped up, Merkel was diverted first to Lisbon, then Rome. Emergency plans then kicked in, and her safe passage home was overland—until the coach got a flat tyre in an Italian village, leaving Europe’s most powerful politician stuck. Thankfully locals arrived before the mechanics, unfurling a “HELLO ANGELA” banner to make sure her ego wasn’t punctured too. Dutch Labour pains Labour could lose an election and its leader by June. But, if it does, Britain’s left will be far from alone in feeling unloved, leaderless and out of power. In February, the hugely unpopular Dutch Labour party resorted to a form of electoral suicide, dramatically leaving Holland’s ruling coalition, partially collapsing the government. Its leader (and one-time Prospect contributor) Wouter Bos then quit to spend more time with his family, raising eyebrows in the Dutch media. With the Dutch general election coming up this summer, the big winners are parties of the right, and in particular the charismatic libertarian iconoclast Geert Wilders. Wilders was once banned from entering Britain, but his attacks on multiculturalism and extremist Islam chime with voters at home, and he now looks odds-on to enter government in June’s poll. Yet things have not turned out entirely badly for Labour. Having seen one leader leave, they immediately found a hugely popular replacement—Job Cohen, the mayor of Amsterdam—and have promptly shot back up in the polls. An intriguing precedent for comrades back in Britain, perhaps. CULTUREPhilosophical footballers Only days after the election ends, on 9th May, another epic contest kicks off: the Philosopher’s Football Match, a real-life recreation of the 1972 Monty Python sketch pitting German philosophers against Greeks. The Python version was notable for its inaction—both sides philosophised without much football being played. This time is different, as Nietzsche Albion (managed by Prospect contributor AC Grayling) take on Socrates Wanderers (led by former England manager Graham Taylor). The Python match saw tempers boil over, with referee Confucius forced to give Friedrich Nietzsche a yellow card. Rough tackles will be kept in check this time, however, by referee (and Prospect’s in-house philosopher) Nigel Warburton; a suitably liberal figure to keep order between the Greek and German traditions. The match’s weakness could be its length: a full 90 minutes may prove taxing for those of philosophical rather than athletic pedigree. As Warburton told us: “‘Like most notions dreamed up by philosophers, the match looks terrific in theory. But whether a ragbag of ageing thinkers can really produce a decent match remains to be seen.” technology Forget the polls: it’s Twitter wot predicted it Can Twitter predict the future? Yes, according to a US paper published in March. Two computer researchers waded through 2.9m messages to track mentions of 24 movies. Tallying the tweets almost perfectly predicted box-office performance, with an accuracy of over 97 per cent in the opening weekend. The results show how social media can quantify normally intangible “buzz”—and suggests other intriguing uses, such as tracking mentions of a certain “Nick Clegg” during television debates. FINANCESoros turns his guns on economists They have faced a global recession, media derision and even the Queen asking why they didn’t see it all coming. But now economists have a new foe: billionaire George Soros. The Hungarian philanthropist is incensed with the dismal science, and has coughed up $50m to fund a new think tank, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, to shake up the discipline. That said, Soros knows his targets to be rational men, so last month he wooed 150 of the world’s best with a star-studded four-day seminar at King’s College, Cambridge, complete with lavish dinners—and, of course, time for earnest self-criticism led by nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Breast-beating apart, one problem did raise eyebrows, according to Prospect’s resident mole: a poor gender equilibrium. And even the largely male gathering looked positively balanced next to the institute’s advisory board, featuring more than two dozen grey-haired embodiments of homo economicus, but not even one femina economica. A regrettable oversight—but one that perhaps confirms Soros’s complaint that economics itself lacks diversity of thinking.
