Masculinity has been in crisis for as long as anyone can remember. The usual explanation is that post-industrial society doesn’t much care for brawn. We’re all office dwellers now, mutely churning out spreadsheets for other spreadsheet producers. The theory makes sense as far as it goes. But something else has changed much more recently: a
Never judge a country by its airport road. Georgia’s, from international arrivals to the heart of Tbilisi, is impeccable. The George W. Bush highway (yes, really) is smooth asphalt, with chic electric cars humming down avenues, punctuated by spanking new Lukoil petrol stations with fuel at dirt-cheap prices. It is impeccably clean. And when you
Pundits writing for a young audience are always telling readers to ‘stop pretending to be working-class!’ and stop ‘fetishising the working class’. They seem more angered by the imitation of class than the iniquities of class itself. Singer Lily Allen and the rap star Yungblud have both been denounced on Twitter for – to paraphrase
During a recent trip to Taipei, I sat down with several retired Taiwanese national security officials to talk about the possibility of war with China. Their responses were sobering: most agreed an outright war is likely this decade or in the early 2030s – whenever Beijing thinks it can outmuscle the US and Japan. They
The Spectator’s Economic Innovator of the Year Awards 2023 in partnership with Investec are open for business. We’re looking forward to hearing from entrepreneur-led high-growth businesses across the UK and we’re especially pleased to welcome back our partner Investec – an international banking, wealth and investment group with an extensive UK regional network and a
When Donald Trump ran for the presidency in 2016, he took on a very well-funded politician who had been a successful governor of Florida. And he destroyed him. Trump humiliated ‘low-energy’ Jeb Bush, son of one president and brother of another, and trashed his family’s legacy so comprehensively that the Bush-era Republican party is now
When Simon Case was named as cabinet secretary in September 2020 he became, at the age of 41, the youngest appointee in more than 100 years. He will probably earn another distinction soon: the youngest ex-cabinet secretary in history. In Westminster, some say his departure is a question of when not if. Should he go
For all that the Lockdown Files, as reported in the Telegraph, sometimes read like the screenplay of The Thick of It, they will be a wonderful resource for historians. Whatever one thinks of the morality of Isabel Oakeshott’s actions vis-à-vis Matt Hancock, we now have 2.3 million words of WhatsApp messages that offer a rare
Michael Caine is 90 this week, and he offers to accept questions by email, which he will then answer by email, as if we are communicating between galaxies. Normally this would bother me – gah, actors – but it is Michael Caine, so I can’t mind. Maurice Micklewhite’s invention Michael Caine – he named himself
Lviv My favourite hotels in Lviv were all booked out over the weekend. The world’s justice elite were in town for a gathering on how to hold Russia accountable for its crimes. The US Attorney General and the Chief Prosecutor from The Hague, as well as President Volodymyr Zelensky, were there. It was an apposite
Stockholm Barely a day goes by in Stockholm without a shooting or a bombing. In one part of the city, housing estate residents have been informed about what to do if their building is a bombing target. For all too many Swedes, this is the new normal. Under Swedish law, children under 15 cannot be
Lanfranco Cirillo, architect and interior decorator to the Russian elite, is shaking his head in horror. ‘Absolutely not. No.’ He is answering my question about whether he put a gold toilet and even a gold toilet brush into a villa he built that the Russian opposition says belongs to President Vladimir Putin – and which
Maternal nocturnal worry number 57a: how are our offspring going to get their toes on any rung of the property ladder if they want to carry on living in London? I’m sure thousands of us mothers of young adults lie awake at 2.30 a.m. contemplating the fact that a one-bedroom flat in Leytonstone now costs
‘This is not about Ukraine at all, but the world order,’ said Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, a month after the invasion. ‘The unipolar world is irretrievably receding into the past … A multi-polar world is being born.’ The US is no longer the world’s policeman, in other words – a message that resonates in
‘Yalla! Yalla! Yalla!’ shouts a Saudi man. There are arms dealers, fixers, military men and gun geeks; tanks, assault rifles, mortars and drones. Jets do aerobatics overhead and a band plays Maroon 5. A Chinese robot dog bangs into delegates. Welcome to the International Defence Exhibition in the United Arab Emirates. Business is booming. On
‘Dear parents, a reminder that we are dressing up for World Book Day! Don’t forget your child should come to school in costume as their favourite character tomorrow…’ It’s the email every parent dreads receiving. (Or one of them, anyway.) It tends to be opened at eight o’clock the evening before World Book Day, to
Ravenna, Italy Italy’s first female Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, is steadily becoming the most important political leader in Europe. Some are even saying that it is her destiny to be the next Angela Merkel. If so, that would mean a dramatic change in direction for the European Union towards what she calls a confederal, instead
Cape Town South Africa is falling apart. Blackouts of up to ten hours a day are bringing businesses to a halt, making teaching harder and turning traffic lights dark. Food is rotting in warm fridges. There were more than 200 blackouts last year and they have continued every day so far in 2023. ANC strategists
On 12 April last year, Boris Johnson’s fixed penalty notice was dominating the news. Few noticed another, perhaps equally seismic political story in Bournemouth: a member of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet was being booed by the unions. Speaking at the National Education Union’s annual conference, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson faced a revolt. She had
On hearing the rumours that the boxer David Haye is in a ‘throuple’ – a three-person romantic relationship – with Una Healy from the Saturdays and a model named Sian Osborne, I felt a rare flicker of carnal pique. Apparently Victoria Beckham is off her feed (a prawn and two capers) with worry that her
