We hope this redesign of the magazine cheers you up. If you readers are anything like the 100 Prospect writers who responded to our cover question on the future of politics, then you will need cheering up. The overall tone of the responses was almost absurdly pessimistic. Given how many of the indices that matter (on wealth, freedom, peace and so on) are pointing in the right direction, both domestically and internationally, this pessimism of the thinking classes is a political fact that requires explanation. Is Blair to blame? Iraq? Climate change? Is it a British thing? A European thing? A western thing? It seems unlikely that you would hear such gloom in China or India. And, as Jonathan Rée notes inside, you would not have heard such pessimism from British intellectuals 100 years ago. In those days, the main emotion in politics was hope—and then look what happened! On this basis, perhaps we should take the pessimism of these responses as a sign that we are embarking on an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity.
In any case, judging by the experience of other publications, you will probably have some doubts about our redesign. Design is one of those fields where people confuse what they are accustomed to with what is good. Nonetheless, Prospect still has some of the features of a club, so please give us your feedback. Just don't expect us to believe that the customer is always right. We will, instead, practice a variant of what Jim Holt, inside, calls "soft paternalism." This is based on the premise that even well-informed people often fail to appreciate what is in their best interests, and that their "better selves" need a bit of help from the state (or in this case, the Prospect team). It is a useful idea that has practical applications in everything from pensions policy to "self-exclusion" lists in casinos for compulsive gamblers.
