Contents Issue 286 April 2020

Cover story

Making a killing The story of a Scottish town, an international arms company, broken laws—and a devastating war in the Middle East

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Up front 1 Editorial 6 Contributors 8 Letters plus ’ cartoon strip

Opinions 10 Can mayors save Labour? 11 Coronavirus and autocracy 12 Let’s talk about class

VIEW FROM INDIA 13 A rival to Modi emerges

AT LAW 14 The executive power project

SPEED DATA 15 The middle-age blues

THE DUEL 16 Should Britain rejoin the EU?

Essays

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PROSPECT PORTRAIT Keir Starmer: the case for the defence What the Labour frontrunner’s legal career tells us about his leadership

32 Will this man break Brexit Britain? The EU’s new trade boss, Phil Hogan, has the power to determine the UK’s future. What will he do with it? plus Where the negotiations may falter

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38 Rise and fall of a dictator Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir was accused of genocide. But more mundane matters, like the price of bread, proved his undoing

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44 Capital idea Thomas Piketty, the French economist whose theory of inequality conquered the world, is back. This time with a theory of everything

52 Girl, boy, other What’s behind the extraordinary increase in teenage girls wanting to change gender? And is the NHS fuelling the trend? plus Early treatment for trans children could be life-saving