About Me

The aim of this blog is to refine and re-define what Prospect is doing and should be doing. It exists for the writers and readers of Prospect Magazine, a monthly UK magazine specialising in politics, culture and current affairs. It features a mixture of essay-length analytic articles, first-person reportage, one-page columns and quirkier items.

Notable features of the magazine include head-to-head debates between two writers with opposing views on a subject; roundtable discussions, in which a series of experts with varying views on a given topic meet for a discussion, an edited transcript of which is published in the magazine; and interviews with major political and cultural figures.

The magazine is historically centre-left, but prizes independence over ideology and its articles and authors span the political spectrum.

As Prospect's Publisher, I do not necessarily share and certainly don't influence any of the views expressed in my magazine, nor with the views presented in these blogs. I reserve the right to contribute, but only on the same terms as any reader. Our editor, David Goodhart, equally reserves the right to pay no attention - and fair play to him.

Here's some background about myself. I started my publishing career as production manager at Marvel Comics in 1979, joined The Economist in 1982, helped launch Business Magazine 1986-90 and for good or bad reasons, helped fuel the cult of business celibrity. I relaunched International Management as a pan European commerce journal in the early 1990s for Reed Business Publishing and discovered how Powerpoint and Excel may cause mental illness. I started my own business with European Quality from 1993 to 2005, and learned the real value of colleagues and hiring and trusting the right people. I was asked to run Prospect, which aspires to be the world's most high-minded journal of opinion and debate, at the end of 2005. We still have a long way to go, but we punch above our weight, mainly because have some very talented people working and writing for us.

I like publishing excellent, well-presented writing from people with something interesting to say. I hate political partisanship and am allergic to dishonesty in any form.