Peter Williams

you can delete to Mind if you go here: www.mind.org.uk/news-campaig...

donate to Mind if you go here: www.mind.org.uk/news-campaig...

Grace under pressure: the legacy of Graham Thorpe He changed cricket—and many who watched him play—for the better

Graham Thorpe, who would have been 56 today, is being remembered at the Oval, in support of Mind. I wrote on why the England batter meant so much to many of us and how he helped generations of cricketers to speak honestly about their mental health: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/society/7074...

Henley & Partners’ wealth migration reports have been reported all over the world, both to prove both that there's a massive exodus of wealth from the UK and that there isn't.

Our forensic review finds the data riddled with anomalies - and in key places looks fabricated:

also, "it remains to be seen". any final sentence or paragraph containing that heap of nothing should be deleted whole.

Does the UK need identity cards? We asked former Labour home secretary David Blunkett and Rebecca Vincent of Big Brother Watch whether digital IDs could modernise government—or condem...

We asked former Labour minister David Blunkett and Big Brother Watch’s @rebeccajvincent.bsky.social whether digital IDs could modernise government—or condemn us to intolerable state surveillance.
www.prospectmagazine...

How our water went to shit Privatisation was meant to revitalise a public good. Instead, it left us with leaky pipes, sewage spills and rivers not fit to swim in

As reports emerge that Ofwat, the water regulator in England and Wales, will be abolished, @oliverbullough.bsky.social investigates how privatisation left us with filthy rivers, soaring bills and broken infrastructure
www.prospectmagazine...

How our water went to shit Privatisation was meant to revitalise a public good. Instead, it left us with leaky pipes, sewage spills and rivers not fit to swim in

The UK’s filthy rivers are a national scandal and our water infrastructure is broken. Privatisation has failed, but why? @oliverbullough.bsky.social tells the sorry tale.
www.prospectmagazine...

Prospect summer double out now! As per journalistic law, a double issue means a bumper issue. Highlights include @oliverbullough.bsky.social on the state of our water, @isabelh.bsky.social on the Dalai Lama, @jamesbloodworth.bsky.social on Matthew Goodwin plus Mark Gatiss, Brian Cox, and loads more

The Dalai Lama’s last stand As he approaches reincarnation, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader has set up a fight with Beijing that will endure beyond death

As he approaches reincarnation, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader has set up a fight with Beijing that will endure beyond death, writes Isabel Hilton.
www.prospectmagazine...

Geezer and I on our way to the stage 🎸

Photo by Mark Weiss, ca. 1970s

New Prospect out now! Highlights include Daron Acemoglu and Peter Hoskin on AI, Neil Kinnock on Labour's "paralytic caution", @aloner.bsky.social's extraordinary encounter with the deputy mayor of Jerusalem; and our new columnist @benansell.bsky.social on the state of the Rejoin movement

Is she sure it isn't the other way round?

Looking at private school pupil numbers in the ISC census and they've fallen back to where they were in..... 2022. Not exactly the disaster many predicted....

1 [Title panel, like the old Ladybird book]: 'What To Look For In Spring with Kemi Badenoch' 2 KEMI [glued to her phone as she walks through a beautiful springtime scene]: One thing that always brings me joy at this time of year 3 KEMI: is to spot a really dank meme. [Kemi is walking past children dancing round a maypole, daffodils swaying in the breeze, cricketers playing on village greens] 4 KEMI: Or seeing the number of plays on my Jordan Peterson podcast [She has now entered a beautiful woodland, shafts of light dappling an infinite carpet of bluebells] 5 KEMI: Or beholding one of my mutuals get traction on X with a thread on Cultural Marxism and Gender Ideology [Butterflies flit past. A Badger scampers by her feet, unheeded] 6 KEMI: Or an inspiring takedown of Critical Race Theory by Katherine Birbalsingh, Britain’s Strictest Headteacher! 7 KEMI [a bluebird landing on her shoulder, a dragonfly buzzing past through a shaft of sunlight]: Ah - look - @Rando64’s reposted a fire crying-doge meme clapping back at some leftist journalist’s take 8 KEMI: [Continues] ...on my Insta post memeing what I said to Jordan about the West being in crisis from the metropolitan elite. 9 KEMI: [silently walking, still looking at her phone while deer gambol, lambs frolic, hares box around her, unheeded] 10 KEMI: [Walking off into out of the woods, still on her phone]: Beautiful!

What to Look For in Spring, with Kemi Badenoch

What Nietzsche knows about Donald Trump Maga isn’t mere chaos, but a new moral order based on hierarchy, dominance and submission to authority. To win again, liberals must remake the case fo...

Long accustomed to moral and cultural ascendancy, liberalism must now defend itself against Trumpian values of hierarchy, dominance and submission to authority, writes Sasha Mudd.
www.prospectmagazine...

John Lanchester · Short Cuts: Labour’s Straitjacket The Tories, in office, prepared a trap for Labour. It had a large sign on it saying ‘It’s a Trap’ and then next to...

‘It makes no sense for the government to subcontract its entire economic agenda to almost-certainly-wrong predictions by
an external body.’

John Lanchester on the problem with the government’s overreliance on the OBR:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

In case you were looking for something different to get annoyed about, @timsmedley.bsky.social on water companies, sewage, executive pay etc

Huge thanks to @danigaravelli.bsky.social for her brilliant piece in @lrb.co.uk this was Alasdair’s favourite literary magazine to read so feels very special for the archive to be featured in it, link in bio to read the piece in full👆🏽

How Trump used emergency legislation for his tariffs policy The constitution provides that it is for Congress and not the president to set the terms of trade

There are checks and balances to stop much of what Trump is doing. They are simply not being used by a compliant Congress, writes @davidallengreen.bsky.social.
www.prospectmagazine...

Five Eyes has always been something of a strange beast: a tangle of the whitest former colonies of the British state, negotiated by intelligence chiefs rather than politicians. But perhaps because of the lack of attention and scrutiny it receives, it is one of the most profoundly connected alliances the US enjoys. Put simply, it could not be unpicked without dramatic losses of intelligence collection to every partner. If Five Eyes collapsed, operations against criminal gangs might fail, the movements of insurgent groups in the Middle East and elsewhere could go untracked, terrorists could slip back under the radar. Yes, the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand would be more vulnerable, but so would the USA. The danger is that no-one near Donald Trump knows enough or cares enough to prevent that from happening.

Trump’s abrupt firing of the two more senior officials in the National Security Agency – perhaps at the behest of Laura Loomer? – puts further strains on the Five Eyes alliance.

But without it, everyone involved – including the US – is running blind. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/united...

New Prospect out now! Highlights include @petergeoghegan.bsky.social on the men funding Reform, @rostaylor.bsky.social on how Britain's universities were pushed towards penury, @emmahaslett.bsky.social on Maga pronatalism, and @stephencollins.bsky.social on Kemi Badenoch's unique leadership style

Our libraries are under threat Libraries are essential for many communities. But funding for them is constantly being reduced, and we are losing these places of knowledge

Libraries are essential for many communities. But funding for them is constantly being reduced, and we are losing these places of knowledge.

Greenland: the first Brexit How plucky Greenland escaped the European Communities only to end up threatened by the United States

"If America can threaten Greenland and Denmark—and Canada and Panama and Mexico—there is no inherent reason why it cannot also threaten us. Plucky independence ultimately means nothing to bullies who want to take things from you," writes DAT Green

www.prospectmagazine...

Fiscal rules? What fiscal rules? We don’t need rigid, arbitrary rules to determine acceptable levels of spending—real-world rules are already baked into the economy

"We don’t need rigid, arbitrary rules to determine acceptable levels of spending—real-world rules are already baked into the economy"

Reupping @samfr.bsky.social's piece for @prospectmagazine.co.uk on fiscal rules after the Spring Statement

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/lab...

If there is one chart that damns our fiscal establishment it is this. During a period of historically low interest rates we utterly failed to lock them in when issuing our national debt.

Farming across the divide Two very different events in Oxford are showing how to navigate our polarised world

Growing differences in the way we eat reflect the polarisation of society, writes Julian Baggini.
www.prospectmagazine...

The devastating reality of disability benefit cuts The government must face the consequences of taking support from the poorest, and try to find a better way

Disability benefits: soothing words, frightening numbers

New column attempting to cut through the spin www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/pol...

"It is surely worth at least pausing to ask whether this is a less harmful way to balance the books than, say, raising taxes in the way that the left would support, or reducing the formula for pension rises in a way that technocratic thinktankers might prefer"