CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

is professor of politics at the University of Ulster

ARTHUR AUGHEY PHILIP BALL’s most recent book is The Devil’s Doctor (Heinemann) JOE BOYD is the author of White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s RODRIC BRAITHWAITE

contents

Issue one hundred and twenty-five August 2006

is the author of Moscow 1941 (Profile Books)

DEREK BROWER is a journalist. He covers Russia and energy politics

COVER STORY

was foreign minister of Mexico from 2000 to 2003

JORGE CASTAÑEDA TAMARA CHALABI

26

Lives of crime

DAVID ROSE

is the author of The Shi’is of Jabal ‘ mil and the New A Lebanon (Palgrave Macmillan)

MARK COUSINS is the author of The Story of Film (Pavilion Books) RICHARD DOWDEN

is the director of the Royal African Society is writing a book on metaphysics and the mind is the author of The Siege of Derry (Abacus)

STEPHEN EVERSON

CARLO GÉBLER

DAVID HERMAN is a contributing editor to Prospect JOHN HORGAN

Blair’s “tough on the causes of crime” and Cameron’s “hug a hoodie” speeches reflect a sociological model of crime. But new research suggests some people from troubled backgrounds are far more likely to offend than others.

is director of the Centre for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey

CHRIS HUHNE

MP is Liberal Democrat shadow environment secretary is a former MP

OPINIONS

DEBATE

ROBERT JACKSON TIM KING

10 A normal hatred?

TONY KLUG

is a writer living in France

20 Should Britain renew the Trident nuclear deterrent?

LEWIS PAGE

VS

TONY KLUG

is vice chair of the Arab-Jewish Forum

Most modern anti-Jewish feeling is a world away from “traditional” antisemitism.

RODRIC BRAITHWAITE

ADAM KUPER is author of The Reinvention of Primitive Society (Routledge) DAN KUPER works for London Underground PHILIPPE LEGRAIN is the author of Open World: The Truth about Globalisation BEN LEWIS

Britain’s Trident submarines will last until 2025. Should they be renewed or can we survive without them?

12 Numbers matter

BOB ROWTHORN

It is time for mainstream politics to debate the scale of British immigration.

ESSAY

32 A tale of two lefts

JORGE CASTAÑEDA

presents BBC4’s Art Safari is a writer and is a criminal barrister

13 Primitive errors

ADAM KUPER

KENAN MALIK

broadcaster

ALEX MCBRIDE LEWIS PAGE

The “primitive” is a figment of the western mind. Someone tell Chirac.

is a former naval officer is a Conservative MP

14 Genetic revisionism

PHILIP BALL

Andrés López Obrador’s failure to win the Mexican election masks a trend: Latin America’s left turn. But there are two lefts in the region: one reformist, with its roots in hardcore leftism; the other authoritarian, born of the Latin populist tradition.

MALCOLM RIFKIND DAVID ROSE

writes for Vanity Fair and The Observer

BOB ROWTHORN

is a professor of economics at Cambridge University is warden of New College, Oxford is professor of mathematics at Warwick University

The human genome is not a book, and this metaphor is now becoming an obstacle to understanding.

SYMPOSIUM

38 English questions

ARTHUR AUGHEY, ROBERT JACKSON, MALCOLM RIFKIND, CHRIS HUHNE

ALAN RYAN

15 Gazprom’s triumph

DEREK BROWER

IAN STEWART

Liberalised energy markets have brought Europe to the edge of a gas supply crisis.

World Cup flag-waving and the prospect of Gordon Brown as prime minister have revived the English question. Will it be politicised?

2 PROSPECT August 2006