First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog

All we are saying is give Prospect an interview

It’s always nice to be talked about. And, with the latest Prospect about to hit the shops—out tomorrow, and hopefully on the doorsteps of subscribers this morning—we thought we should see what people have been saying about us this last month.

Our interview with Sir Paul McCartney (in the new edition) has been widely trailed, with a bunch of headlines in last Sunday’s newspapers, and more responses from various commentators. The Sunday Times had it on the front page, followed up by  The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent and The Daily Mail. All four cherry-picked Sir Paul’s claims about introducing his fellow Beatles to the Vietnam war. The Lennon-McCartney relationship seems enduringly fascinating, and their Vietnam tussles make a nice addition to other relationship undercurrents, adding political rivalry to “who wrote the best tunes?” Elsewhere, Lord Skidelsky’s article on reinventing globalisation—the cover story for the new edition—has already been trailed by Madeline Bunting in the Guardian on Monday, and been spotted in Canada’s National Post.

We’ve ventured onto the airwaves over the last month too, especially with David Goodhart and Toby Young debating social mobility on Radio 4’s Today Program. Toby’s meritocracy essay was picked up by The New Zealand Herald. Confirming Prospect’s antipodean reach, Tim Butcher was also invited to appear on Australian ABC radio, to talk about China’s role in the turmoil in the eastern Congo and his recent Prospect article, “The Curse of Leopold.” Meanwhile, in what approached a clean sweep of the Anglosphere, Thomas Wright’s recent piece on Europe and America was run in the Toronto Star.

And that is quite enough self promotion for one day; until, that is, we start putting up the new edition, later this afternoon.