Contents March 2017

PROSPECT MARCH

Letters & opinions 4 Letters 6 Posturing behind

“the people” 7 The Trump trap

8 Labour pains

9 The scary science of continental drift plus ’ cartoon strip

10 How Britain can still count after it quits 12 Macron and a country at a crossroads 14 View from China

Reader’s block

The Duel 16 Is localism just a cover for cuts?

40 Brief encounter

Steven Pinker “ Knowledge has exponentiated and is available to all” 42 Take back control

We’re being asked to pre-commit to a pig-in-a-poke Brexit. Here’s how to retain a free hand 44 Don’t care was made to care

The priority for fixing the NHS isn’t more cash for hospitals, but supporting the frail at home 46 May’s way

The PM has clambered up the greasy pole in a style of her own. Don’t imagine she’ll be easy to dislodge

Speed data 18 A world going grey

Features

Taking liberties Taking liberties Taking liberties

20 Shooting the messengers

Trump rages at journalists— and they gave up on him before he even started plus 27 High crimes, low odds

30 Trumpeting a global trade war

The US underpinned the liberal trading order. So what next?

36 War of attrition

Abortion rights were already being chipped away at by many US states. Now Washington is joining in

50 Getting it together

Having teased out democracy’s paradoxes, Amartya Sen is keeping his cool as politics runs wild 52 Spooked

Spies see everything, and they’ve seen everything before. Except Donald Trump plus 56 Silence in court

58 The vision thing

Roger Penrose reimagined the universe. But could a thinker of such breadth ever emerge today?