CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

JEAN AITCHISON is the Rupert Murdoch professor o f language and communication at the University o f Oxford. Her most recent book is The Language Web: The Power and Problem of Words. BBC Keith Lectures (CUP)

BRUCE ANDERSON is the political columnist o f the Spectator

JEREMY CLARKE is a freelance writer

DEREK COOMBS is chairman o f Prospect

IAN DAVIDSON is a Financial Times columnist

KATHERINE FRANK is w riting a biography o f Indira Gandhi (HarperCollins)

PETER GLOTZ is the founding rector o f Erfurt University

DAVID GOODHART is editor o f Prospect

PHILIP GORDON is senior fellow at the IISS and author o f A Certain Idea of France: French Security Policy and the Gaullist Legacy (Princeton University Press)

AC GRAYLING is lecturer in philosophy at Birkbeck College, London and senior research fellow at St Anne’s College, Oxford

JOHN GRIBBIN is a v isiting fellow in astronomy at the University o f Sussex. His books include In the Beginning (Penguin) and Companion to the Cosmos (Phoenix)

KATHRYN HUGHES is w riting a biography o f George Eliot

JOHN LLOYD is associate editor o f the New Statesman

NORBERT LYNTON is a former Guardian art critic and professor o f art history

MARION McGILVARY is a writer

LEO McKINSTRY is the author o f Turning the Tide: A Personal Manifestofor Modem Britain (M ichael Joseph)

IAIN McLEAN is professor o f politics at the University o f Oxford

JOHN O’SULLIVAN was a speech writer for Margaret Thatcher and is editor pf the N ew York-based National Review

JOHN PLENDER writes for the Financial Times

FREDERIC RAPHAEL is a novelist

JANE ROBINS is a journalist on the Evening Standard

ROBERT SKIDELSKY is completing a three volume biography o f Keynes (Macmillan)

COLIN SMITH is a former foreign correspondent. H e is completing a novel set in Palestine during the British mandate

MARIO VARGAS LLOSA is a writer

PETER WAYNE is serving 13 years for robbery at Channings Wood prison

TOM WILKIE is former science editor o f the Independent

DAVID WILLETTS is Conservative MP for Havant

TONY WRIGHT is Labour MP for Cannock & Burntwood

2 PROSPECT May 1997

Prospect

IFho whom? Page 8

OPINIONS 8

BLAIR’S NEW CLASS JOHN O’SULLIVAN Socialism may be dead but the in terventionist itch is alive and well.

10

IF GEORGE ELIOT COULD VOTE KATHRYN HUGHES Despite sympathising with the Majors, the Blairs would get the vote.

12

A LITERARY ENGAGEMENT MARIO VARGAS LLOSA The purpose of literature is not ju s t to alleviate our boredom on the bus— writers must be committed.

Issue nineteen May 1997

16 WHERE’S THE STRATEGY? IAN DAVIDSON Britain can be for or against federalism, but it must have a European strategy.

18 DEBATE: WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE JEAN AITCHISON AND AC GRAYLING do battle over split infinitives and the changing meaning of words.

ESSAYS 2 2

WHO ARE THE MASTERS NOW? DAVID GOODHART asks whether public opinion has grown too powerful for its own good. Do governments react too much and govern too little?

Imperial stereotype. Page 26

26 WHOWAS NEHRU? KATHERINE FRANK India is scandalised by a dirt-digging biography of its first prime minister. Can western individualists understand an Indian life?

14 THE MORAL MINORITY DEREK COOMBS considers the consequences of the flight from fatherhood.

15 WHAT’S LEFT IN EUROPE PETER GLOTZ W ill a Blair victory boost Europe’s dispirited social democrats?

On attend Blair. Page 15