PROSPECT

Contents

1 Editorial 5 Contributors 6 Letters

Up front

8 HOW TO FIX Theatre

Before the curtain goes up again, the industry must change 9 WHAT YOU NEED TO

KNOW ABOUT... The vaccine

It has come at record speed—

but without cutting corners plus In fact 11 IN PRAISE OF LOST CAUSES Trump’s foreign policy

The china shop will be no safer with the bull gone plus WHY... Classics 12 Stephen Collins’s

cartoon strip 13 AT LAW EU law in the UK, 1973-2020:

an obituary 14 VIEW FROM Iran—ironic republic 15 SPEED DATA Working from home

Many don’t want to go back to the office 16 THE DUEL Should journalists stop relying so much on anonymous sources?

Essays

LIBERAL DEMOCRACY

18 The future of liberalism After Trump’s downfall, here is the path to renewal

30 The revolution will be institutionalised Socialists, as well as liberals, fare better by working within formal institutions

34 Know your enemy Painting anti-liberals as 20th-century totalitarians lets them off the hook

TOMORROW’S ECONOMY

38 Devalued currency? The Treasury today It has dominated Whitehall for a century, but is HMT still up to the job?

46 Project diversity Corporate programmes have exploded, but views are mixed on their efficacy

52 The food bank paradox They feed the hungry—but do they also entrench the poverty problem?

60 Shock therapy The pandemic has pushed the UK to a more European economic model—just as we leave the EU

18

BEYOND BORDERS

64 Finding the words to save the world We need to talk about the way we talk about climate change

70 Deep waters The myths around the Channel fuel a very British xenophobia

ETERNAL VIGILANCE

74 Unconscionable neglect? The UN failed to stop the Rohingya tragedy in Myanmar. Is it capable of preventing atrocities?

80 What ever happened to the Arab Spring? Ten years on, Tunisia is coping with the chaos of a free society