I CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN is the author of No IPlace Like Home (Virago)

NICOLAS BARKER is former head of conservation at the British Library

LESLEY CHAMBERLAIN is the author of Nietzche in Turin (Quartet)

JEREMY CLARKE is a freelance writer

WARWICK COLLINS is a novelist and screenwriter

BERNARD CONNOLLY is a former European commission economist

JASON COWLEY writes for The Times and was a Booker prize judge

GAVYN DAVIES is chief international economist at Goldman Sachs

EVAN DAVIS is economics correspondent for the BBC’s Newsnight

NICHOLAS EBERSTADT is a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute

CHARLES ELTON is a film and television producer

IAN GILMOUR is the author of Whatever Happened totheTories (Fourth Estate)

CHARLES GOODHART is on the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee

AC GRAYLING is lecturer in philosophy at Birkbeck College, London

WILL HUTTON is editor of the Observer

ANATOLE KALETSKY writes for The Times

ADEWALE MAJA-PEARCE is a freelance writer specialising in Africa

DAVID MARSH is director of European strategy at Robert Fleming Securities

MARION McGILVARY is a writer

ANDREW MONSON is a barrister

HUGH O’SHAUGHNESSY isa writer specialising in Latin America

BRUCE PAGE is former editor of the New Statesman. He is writing a book about derivatives and risk management systems

ALASDAIR PALMER ispublic policy editor of the Sunday Telegraph

GILES RADICE is Labour MP, North Durham

FREDERIC RAPHAEL is a novelist

STEVEN ROSE is professor of biology at the Open University

ROBERT SKIDELSKY is completing a threevolume biography of JM Keynes

ROBERT TAYLOR is employment editor at the Financial Times

PETER WAYNE is serving 13 years for robbery at Lindholme prison, Yorkshire

LEWIS WOLPERT is a developmental biologist at University College London

FAREED ZAKARIA is managing editor at IForeignAffairs

Prosped:

OPINIONS 8 LOCK UP YOUR LAPTOPS WARWICK COLLINS Will computers eventually rule over us? Try turning off the internet...

10 MUSEVENI IN NEASDEN YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN Uganda makes amends to its Asians in a West London temple.

11 GOOD-BYE TO BERLIN AC GRAYLING Unlike most intellectuals, Isaiah Berlin never pretended to have answers to the important questions.

Dinner with asmile.Page 13

13

DOES SHE TAKE THERAPY? MARION McGILVARY thinks therapy helps when friends and pills no longer can.

14 BEYOND STICKS AND CARROTS EVAN DAVIS recommends asimple reform of Britain's social security system.

16 DEBATE: THE PLACE OF GENES STEVEN ROSE AND LEWIS WOLPERT disagree on which approach to science is most useful in explaining life.

But does it work? Page 14

Issue twenty-five December 1997

Closed democracy. Page 20

ESSAYS 20 DEMOCRATIC TYRANNY FAREED ZAKARIA argues that elections are not everything: political liberty and the rule of law are often more important than democracy.

26 FICTIONAL FAILURE JASON COWLEY If you want fresh writing and an engagement with the contemporary, don’t look to British fiction.

30 PROHIBITION WARS HUGH O’SHAUGHNESSY argues that the worldwide war on drugs is a waste of time and money; at least until we have reliable information and statistics.

One a day. Page 30

34 ROUNDTABLE: HERE IT COMES, BUT WILL IT WORK? BERNARD CONNOLLY, GAVYN DAVIES, CHARLES GOODHART, WILL HUTTON, ANATOLE KALETSKY, DAVID MARSH, GILES RADICE Some say Emu will solve Europe’s economic and political problems; others say it will exacerbate them.

A Prospect panel thrashes it out.

2 PROSPECT December 1997