The argument argument

Britain is in the midst of an almighty argument about

Letters & opinions

Hannah Jane Parkinson (“Life in the slow lane, February)

Treasure island

Britain has long given haven to ill-gotten gains. That may now change—thanks to David Cameron

Incapacitated

Disability benefits have been broken

Lay off the boomers: it’s all our fault

In political terms, my generation really did have a naughty nineties

Liberty, equality, patriarchy

In France, cultural opposition to the #MeToo movement is entrenched

A spook gets the shivers on Brexit

The former head of MI6 opens up to Prospect’s Jay Elwes

Fancy another referendum?

What’s the appetite? And how would it go?

Can the private sector make services run better?

Look at the world around us, in all its amazing creativity

1918 Spanish flu epidemic

Extracts from memoirs and diaries, chosen by Ian Irvine

Writers blocked

I write to be mischievous, subversive and perverse. There’s no room for any of that in a culture obsessed with offence

Battle for the mike

Free speech is never as free as we’d like to think—who gets to be heard depends on who’s got power

The truth about snowflakes and censors

Two student journalists on whether free speech is really threatened on campus

Words that kill

In 780BC, the poet Semonides of Amorgos deployed an

Britain needs free speech

And here’s how we can get it

The new culture wars

New polling reveals a split country: EU Leavers hanker for blunt politicians, while Remainers worry about causing offence. But overall Britain is in no mood for “political correctness”

The last great liberal

A shameless opportunist who ripped up the rule book, Roosevelt never allowed principle to stand in the way of good politics. Why can’t today’s left-wing leaders live up to his example?

The good Muslim delusion

Western powers have been trying—and failing—to dictate what Islam should be for centuries

Confessions of a number cruncher

The head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies on how damned lies get served up with statistics

How do we look?

Our ideal of the body beautiful was defined by the Ancient Greeks—but other cultures had very different ideas

The invisible man

Daniel Day-Lewis’s shock decision to retire means the movie industry has lost one of its most mercurial talents. But who is he, really? Wendy Ide tries to separate the man from the mythology

Best of all possible worlds

According to a compelling new manifesto for optimism, the planet is becoming a better place, says Philip Ball—despite all appearances to the contrary

The enemy within

Immigrants are not a threat to European democracy—but the extreme right-wing reaction to them could well be, warns Daniel Trilling

Access all areas

From Ibiza Proms to Tiny Tots concerts, classical music is trying to broaden its appeal. But does it risk losing what makes it special, asks Suna Erdem

The female gaze

It wasn’t Ingmar Bergman who made stars of his women, but they who made him, says Francine Stock

Books in brief

Now it’s not just the mavericks, but mainstream economists

Recommends

In January 1932, Pablo Picasso, then 50, painted The

Leith on language

It may not have been “the Sun wot won it”, when it

Life of the mind

The traditional way of writing about patients is to

Matters of taste

Catania’s seafront is bordered by a railway. Iron railings

Wine

Every year, one event stands out in the wine calendar:

DIY investor

There are very few markets where DIY investors enjoy

No more talk of “green crap”

Technological advances are increasing the efficiency of renewable energy around the world, but with the distractions of Brexit, can Britain keep up? Here, Labour’s Rachel Reeves is worried the government might skimp on its commitment to green tech, while the Conservative Peter Aldous is more optimistic. Prospect’s Jay Elwes, by contrast, sees little hope of the state pushing things forward, and is instead looking to private enterprise for the answers

It’s all about storage

The UK’s energy storage sector is on the brink of historic

The new power generation

Both Rachel Reeves and Peter Aldous are right—the way

Events

The Prospect Book Club meets every third Monday of the month (excluding bank holidays) at 6.30pm at 2 Queen Anne’s Gate, London, SW1H 9AA. To book tickets please visit prospectmagazine.co.uk/events

Evan Davis

Newsnight presenter

Swimming upstream

The term “conventional wisdom” is often attributed

Beating the inflation blues

The time may have come to get comfortable with risk

Banking on bits

Cryptocurrency: tempting —but do your homework

Bitten by the bug

It’s still the ultimate asset

Do something innovative with your ISA

The Individual Savings Account (ISA) has come a long

Spending new money

Where does value lie?

Giving money to computers

Sounds like sci-fi—but it’s surprisingly boring