Stephen Fry could do with a lesson in ‘radicalisation’

Stephen Fry has accused J.K. Rowling of being ‘inflammatory and contemptuous’, ‘mocking’ and adding to ‘a terribly distressing time for trans people’. Fry, who narrated the Harry Potter audiobooks, has damned their author for saying ‘cruel’ and ‘wrong’ things and for failing to ‘disavow some of the more revolting and truly horrible, destructive – violently destructive – things that people say’. He suspects that she’s been ‘radicalised by Terfs’, charged her with kicking up ‘a hornet’s nest of transphobia which has been entirely destructive’, and dismissed her as ‘a lost cause’.

Might I interrupt this lengthy damnatio memoriae to point out that Fry is supposed to be Rowling’s friend and to venture that, if she deserves to be rebuked for anything, it’s her godawful taste in friends. Fry, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson. The woman is like flypaper for airheads, dilettantes, and abject ingrates.

Fry’s comments, which came in a recording of the podcast The Show People, are in stark contrast to his answer when asked about these matters in 2021 (‘She’s a friend and will remain a friend’) and again the following year, when he refused to ‘abandon’ her and said: ‘I know that J.K. Rowling doesn’t want to see trans people bullied, alienated, shut out of society, made to feel ashamed, guilty, laughed at, all those things.’

Fry suggests Rowling has been ‘radicalised’, a word familiar to followers of the gender controversy for its customary application to women who insist on their rights. Although the terminology echoes that used to describe recruitment of Islamist terrorists, you need not be a feminist semantician to suspect that ‘radical’ is being used as a synonym for ‘hysterical’, as though women who believe in chromosomal sex are like the mad heroine of a Charlotte Perkins Gilman story and would benefit from a lie down.

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Radicalisation is a deceptive and manipulative framing because recognising the existence of physiological differences between men and women isn’t radicalism, it’s biology. Fry has repeatedly professed his distaste for the gender wars and refused to engage on the substance. For all his donnish affectations, he’s a ‘be kind’ merchant whose contribution to the debate is every bit as vacuous as those Insta mums who pose with a Pride Progress flag in front of their ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ wall canvas every 1 June.

Yet were Fry to take heed of what the gender ideology vanguard say, he might grasp that their use of ‘radicalisation’ is projection. For if you’ve convinced yourself that men become women by declaring themselves to be so, that women corseting themselves in chest binders or having healthy breasts amputated is sound therapeutic care, that children should be offered medical and even surgical interventions to mutilate their bodies – and, yes, this is what the vanguard believes – then you should stop and ask who exactly has been radicalised here. 

When I first wrote critically about gender identity ideology on Coffee House in 2019, it set in motion a parting of ways with several friends who could not tolerate my disagreement with the fundamental convictions they had recently picked up from Twitter. The end of a friendship is often mired in sadness and regret but when a mate breaks away because you reckon Judith Butler is a bit of a nutter, there is – eventually – relief at a bullet dodged.

There is also a deeper appreciation of those friendships which span political and philosophical divides. Some of my dearest friends are people who maintain that trans women are women, Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Scotland should be an independent state, and Jeremy Corbyn would have made a good prime minister. Mateship across ideological lines is normal and healthy, I don’t care what the bug-eyed scolds on BlueSky say. You stick by your mate, defend him even as you disagree with him, and you most certainly don’t turn on him when a gang of under-medicated hall monitors corner you in the cafeteria.

I’d like to think that Rowling doesn’t pay much mind to turncoats who huff the fumes of her success then ditch her for status points. That she’s too busy spending her days in a mountaintop hotel typing ‘All work and no play makes Jo a dull girl’ and her nights dive-bombing into a vault of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. But no doubt it stings her just as it would the rest of us. That’s unfortunate but it is better than the alternative. A friendship you can only hold on to by believing, or pretending to believe, that womanhood is nothing more than a feeling, that sex-based rights are bigoted, that transing the gay away is progressive, is a friendship from which you should flee without delay.

If J.K. Rowling has been radicalised, it is not by Terfs but by the spinelessness and intellectual vacuity of characters like Stephen Fry. Men who profess left-liberal affinities in every other regard but are content to align themselves with harmful, reactionary doctrines because to do otherwise would be low-brow. Why, he’d be no better than the ghastly Americans who voted for Trump and those hideous English provincials who read the Daily Express. People like this have nothing to add to the conversation beyond repeating vapid platitudes half-remembered from their last dinner party. If this is the quality of contribution Fry has to offer the gender debate, it might be wise all round if he resumed his vow of silence.

RAF Brize Norton chief’s views on patriotism revealed

On Thursday night, a group of Palestine Action protestors managed to enter RAF Brize Norton, spraying paint into a pair of Voyager jet engines and leaving the military base without being caught. The Prime Minister has since called it ‘vandalism’ and there has been talk of proscribing Palestine Action. 

But Mr S wants to know how they managed to get onto the base in the first place. The protesters videoed themselves on scooters, zooming about the runway, seemingly without a single soldier noticing them. It’s a major embarrassment, not just for the military but for the country – especially at a time of heightened global tensions. If some keffiyeh-wearing hippies can scoot into our military bases undetected, what of trained foreign operatives hoping to do real damage?  

The person in charge of Brize Norton is one Group Captain Louise Henton OBE, who has spent her time in the RAF working in personnel and administration – what we’d call HR on civvy street. Mr S did a bit of digging into her professional history and found that while studying at an Advanced Command and Staff Course in 2019, she wrote an essay for Air and Space Power Review, entitled ‘Military Culture and Human Rights Violations Committed in Iraq in 2003. Has the Military Learnt its Lessons?’ The essay makes for fascinating reading. In it she tells us: 

Personality traits such as patriotism and bravery are viewed as desirable within the military. This often encourages overt masculine behaviour amongst its members, therefore stepping outside the norm and challenging the group is often looked down upon and difficult to do. The task-focused approach can also lead to corners being cut if it is deemed that the ends justify the means, that certain actions or behaviours are tolerated if they achieve the desired result. The danger with this is that such undesirable behaviours, if tolerated for long enough, become the norm and the level of standards gradually erodes… Methods of bonding and creating team cohesiveness within the military often involve pranks and banter, but this isolates those who are different to the norm.

Goodness me. Patriotism and masculinity are undesirable? Pranks and banter create a negative military culture? Far be it for Mr S to play armchair general, but perhaps Group Captain Henton ought to spend a little more of her time focusing on the basics, such as securing her base’s perimeter…

Whatever will Meghan think of selling next?

Well, you can’t say that we weren’t warned. Repeatedly. At the beginning of this week, the Duchess of Sussex wrote in a subscriber newsletter, in that inimitably faux-chummy way that she has perfected:

First off, a sincere thank you for making the debut of As Ever absolutely extraordinary. We had a feeling there would be excitement, but to see everything sell out in less than an hour was an amazing surprise. We are pleased to share that on 20 June, we’re going live with the products you love – plus, some new delicious surprises. 

‘Absolutely extraordinary’ is one way of describing the profoundly underwhelming launch of a few pieces of overpriced tat. But as veteran Meghan-watchers know, such barrages of hyperbole are par for the course, and so I lay in wait, metaphorically speaking, for the ‘delicious surprises’ that we have been promised.

The Duchess kept her end of the bargain. If you saw a picture of her smiling beatifically on a garden swing as if she had worked out the solution to world peace (‘No more sleeps!’) on her Instagram account earlier, you would know what you were in for. 

Predictably enough, the revelation of the new products proved underwhelming. There was Meghan’s first venture into alcohol, in the form of an as-yet-unpriced Napa Valley rosé, which is said to have been ‘sourced’ from near her and her husband’s Montecito home. We learn that the wine, which is – naturally enough – a ‘bespoke blend’, will contain ‘soft notes of stone fruit, gentle minerality, and a lasting finish’, and that it is also ‘launching just in time for summer entertaining’.

For those of us who might need several bottles’ worth of bespoke blend Californian rosé to watch the threatened season of With Love, Meghan, this is a highly welcome addition. But for the rest, it’s just another expensive celebrity-endorsed wine, given an added fillip of cynicism by the circumstances under which it’s being sold. 

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The other items are a ‘limited edition orange blossom honey’ – yours for a mere $28! (£20.80) – which the copywriters have gone to town on. We are breathlessly informed that it has a ‘beautiful golden hue, an enticing aroma, delicate floral notes and subtle citrus undertones’. Indeed, not since Mr Jackson the toad entered Mrs Tittlemouse’s parlour in Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse in search of honeyed delights has a product been so hyped. This ‘standout addition to your pantry’ is a must-buy – for those of us who have pantries, of course.

Finally, there is also an apricot spread (‘which balances a delicate sweetness and a gentle brightness that lets this beautiful stone fruit shine’) is almost a bargain at $9 (£6.70) if you opt for a mere jar. Most, however, would wish to go the whole hog and sample the keepsake packaging, which costs a mere $5 (£3.70) extra.  

If this all sounds appallingly naff and cynical, then caveat emptor. Meghan has not established herself as an internationally renowned figure through a lack of business savvy. The initial launch of the brand in April was described as being ‘infused with joy, love, and a touch of whimsy’. Be that as it may, this latest instalment looks as if it’s been carefully focused-grouped.

As stories fly of the latest tranche of departures of Meghan and Harry’s staff – another four have departed in the past week, taking the number of departees up to well over twenty since they headed to Montecito, an impressive figure for this humble and publicity-shy pair – this rather desperate attempt to flog overpriced groceries may yet be Meghan’s only chance of connecting with her public. Such neediness may be admirable, but it’s also becoming grating. This particular honey trap is one that all but the most susceptible will be easily able to resist. 

Tories will remember this assisted dying vote

‘I judge a man by one thing, which side would he have liked his ancestors to fight on at Marston Moor?’ So said Isaac Foot, the Liberal MP and father of Michael. For some Tories, both in and out of parliament, Friday’s assisted dying debate will carry a similar weight in judgements of character. Some 80 per cent of Tory MPs voted against Kim Leadbeater’s Bill at Third Reading, with 92 against, 20 in favour and five registered abstentions. Of the 25-strong new intake, elected last year, just four backed Leadbeater’s Bill: Aphra Brandreth, Peter Bedford, Ashley Fox and Neil Shastri-Hurst.

Social conservatives note that the Tories were much more aligned on assisted dying than Reform UK, which narrowly opposed the change by three votes to two. Only six Conservative MPs backed both this measure and Tuesday’s abortion liberalisation vote: Brandreth, Shastri-Hurst, Luke Evans, Kit Malthouse, Andrew Mitchell and Laura Trott. A striking number of senior Tories were among the 20 who supported assisted dying including Rishi Sunak, Oliver Dowden and Jeremy Hunt. Six shadow cabinet members backed it too including Mel Stride, Victoria Atkins and Chris Philp. ‘That’s the end of his leadership hopes’, remarks one opponent.

Among those who opposed assisted dying, there is praise for Kemi Badenoch. The Tory leader had previously supported the concept in principle before coming out strongly against Leadbeater’s Bill in November. Her argument centred on the legislative process: that insufficient time was dedicated to the Bill and that MPs ought to serve as scrutineers, not campaigners. Her robust stance since then has impressed begrudging internal critics. ‘She did do a good job’, admits one MP who backed a rival candidate. Friday’s vote showed Badenoch’s thinking to be firmly in-line with the majority of her own MPs on this issue. There is frustration among some of her supporters that if twelve Tory proponents had changed their mind, Leadbeater’s Bill would have been sunk.

Perhaps, in time, assisted dying will become accepted wisdom in Tory circles. Those in favour cite its public support and point to the party’s history of belatedly backing ‘progressive’ measures. In March 2003, it was a minority of modernisers who disregarded Iain Duncan Smith to back scrapping Section 28. Within five years, one of them, Boris Johnson, was standing for Mayor of London. Within ten, a Tory PM was championing same-sex marriage. But for those still reeling and angry from yesterday’s vote, it certainly doesn’t feel that way today.

Could the House of Lords block the assisted suicide bill?

Could the House of Lords block the assisted suicide bill, which was approved by the Commons yesterday? It would be pretty unusual for the Lords to do so. But then nothing about the bill has been usual. 

Proponents like to compare Kim Leadbeater’s bill to the big private member’s bills of the 60s on abortion, homosexuality and the death penalty. One difference is that those bills cleared the Commons with huge, commanding majorities. This bill was dragged over the finish line by a very small margin – just 23 votes – and amid a stream of defections from yes to no. In the seven months since the Commons first debated it, the bill’s margin of support has more than halved, to the point where it has now lost its absolute Commons majority.  

So we have a sweeping, society-changing proposal with, at best, a very lukewarm sort of thumbs-up from the lower house. One indication of the general atmosphere: Wes Streeting – the cabinet minister whose brief is most affected by the bill – yesterday evening retweeted a post from Diane Abbott declaring her intention to ‘keep fighting’ on behalf of the vulnerable people threatened by the bill. This is not exactly a moment of consensus. 

More than that, some MPs who voted in favour seem to have done so with little confidence in the actual legislation. According to Politics Home, a ‘furious Labour peer’ complained this week that MPs were telling him they ‘were unhappy with the detail in the bill, but were intending to vote it through on principle and leave it up to the Lords to carry out the thorough scrutiny’. A Labour MP, meanwhile, claimed that colleagues who openly called the bill ‘a mess’ were nevertheless planning to back it. 

Yesterday in the Commons Sir Iain Duncan Smith observed with some exasperation that MPs seemed to be assuming they could pass the bill ‘onto the other House in the vague hope that somehow, they will do better than us and make changes such that it will become a workable piece of legislation’. 

Much of the Commons, in short, seems to have voted out of sympathy for the principle of assisted suicide, while sheepishly hoping that somebody else – the Lords – would actually take responsibility for it. That is a sad comment on the state of the Commons, reduced to hoping Mummy and Daddy will clear up its mess. But it also gives the Lords reason to think that, if they are being asked to do the entire job of scrutinising the bill, they can also block it.

But is that actually within their role? Surely unelected peers can’t override a decision from the elected chamber? Well, yesterday one of the most distinguished constitutional experts in the country, Professor Mark Elliott of the University of Cambridge, argued just the opposite: it would be entirely within the constitutional remit of the Lords to vote it down – or to produce ‘a deadlock situation if, at the ping-pong stage, the Commons (say) refuses to approve additional safeguards the Lords have inserted by way of amendments’.

Professor Elliott takes the objections one by one. Yes, there is a convention that the Lords doesn’t vote down government bills on manifesto commitments, but the Leadbeater bill is neither. Yes, the Commons has priority as the democratically elected chamber, but that doesn’t mean the Lords can’t reject a bill – it just means the Commons might have to override them by using the Parliament Acts to reintroduce the bill. Yes, the Parliament Acts might, in the case of a private member’s bill, be difficult to put into effect, but nothing stops the government reintroducing the same bill. 

This would all be academic, of course, if the Lords was wholly persuaded by Leadbeater’s bill. But as the legislation has made its shambolic progress through the Commons, several peers have spoken out with deep concern. And earlier this year it was reported that ‘Senior peers … believe the bill will struggle to get through the Lords, because there’s strong support for leading opponent Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, the Paralympic champion.’ 

There is certainly enough work for their Lordships to do. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal College of Physicians, Association for Palliative Medicine, British Geriatrics Society, Coalition of Frontline Care, Disability Rights UK, Liberty, Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse, a coalition of eating disorders charities, the National Down Syndrome Policy Group, the head of the government’s suicide prevention strategy and the former High Court judge Sir James Munby have all, from their different angles, raised the alarm about a bill they see as socially transformative and profoundly dangerous. 

Perhaps it’s no wonder that the Commons passed the buck. But by doing so they have added to the sense that nobody truly wants to own this legislation. When pressed on the momentous implications of the bill, Kim Leadbeater effectively says that the government can sort it out later. The government, when asked, shrugs and say it’s not their bill. At some point, somebody has to take responsibility. And if the Lords don’t, it looks like nobody else will.

Let’s call Palestine Action’s RAF attack what it is: sabotage

It might be a little unfair to pick on Lisa Nandy – who was bounced on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday morning and who, to be fair, did condemn unequivocally the actions of the Palestine Action cadres who attacked two of the 14 Voyager aircraft that form the Royal Air Force’s strategic tanker force. But her extemporised response betrayed annoyance at ‘choices’ over a protest before, correctly, reminding the audience that this was about national security.

And it certainly is. These aircraft are vital to our national defence. They refuel the air-defence fighters that patrol the thousands of square miles of the airspace over the North Atlantic that is our Nato responsibility, intercepting nuclear-capable Russian bombers on a regular basis. They allow us to deploy aircraft quickly at range – such as to reinforce Cyprus only this week. The defence of the Falklands hinges on it. At the other end of the scale, they will deploy forces to conduct disaster relief at global range – did the ‘protesters’ want to disable this?

So, damaging and disabling such key assets of the national defence architecture is not a ‘protest’; it is an act of sabotage likely to assist our enemies. And it should be treated as such.

Many immediate thoughts flow from the incident. Most people are unaware of how hard it is to secure and defend a large area such as Brize Norton (BZN), which consists of 1200 acres and has an approximately 6 mile perimeter. What might seem like a serious perimeter fence to most of us is no obstacle to the determined – in military parlance, an obstacle is only such if it is under constant surveillance, and fire support can then be brought down on anyone trying to cross it. This does not apply at BZN, nor any major military facility in the UK. So what does?

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Any station commander worth their salt knows that anything of value on the base has to become a local citadel. When the RAF had nuclear weapons, the bomb-dump was such a citadel – multiple layers of barbed wire, constant surveillance, armed guards, a heavily armed, quick response force. It was accepted that the airfield boundary fence was little more than a ‘Keep Out’ sign and played little part in the security plan. What did contribute over time was a good relationship with the local population, who will spot anything untoward before anyone.

It will be interesting to see, therefore, what the risk assessment was for BZN, and the plan for how highly valuable, operationally vital assets were to be guarded. Because this is not new. In recent decades, anti-war in Yemen protesters broke into BAE Systems Warton and anti-drone protesters into RAF Waddington with varying degrees of intent. And that was at a time when the general backdrop of protest was not as it is today. In the last couple of years we have seen defence companies attacked by Palestine Action, resulting in millions of pounds worth of damage and operational delays.

The perpetrators of those incidents, by and large, were given light sentences and even acquitted on grounds of doing a ‘greater good’. What message did that send? The media continued to refer to the perpetrators as ‘protesters’, not saboteurs, and they were treated sympathetically. This sets societal norms, and so such ‘protests’ can become quasi-legitimised as acts of principled opposition. Worthy of a slapped wrist, perhaps, but…

As Sir Stephen Watson succinctly explained at Policy Exchange recently, there has only been one Just Stop Oil protest in Manchester, and it lasted just 45 seconds before they were arrested for blocking the King’s highway. Set boundaries and you get less bad behaviour, get less bad behaviour and you can control what remains.

And so it must be with Palestine Action. Their act of sabotage needs to be recognised for what it is and treated accordingly as the action of a de facto fifth column acting as ‘useful idiots’. In this light the MOD’s reference to ‘vandalism’ in its much later press release seems inadequate. ‘Vandalism’ is what happens to the bus stop outside the Navy, Army and Air Force institutes.

Only recently, that sympathetic default to well-meaning ‘protest’ has started to harden in the courts. It needs to stiffen up more. The times we are living in do not give us the luxury we enjoyed in the 1990s, in that brief holiday from history when threats appeared to have gone for good and our Armed Forces could be seen as normative vehicles. The threats are back, as the heads of our intelligence services are reminding us with increasing urgency.

The RAF must ask itself whether it has slipped into too much of a peacetime mode, assuming it will be essentially safe ‘at home’. A more operational mindset across the Service would not go amiss.

And we might ask what else is possible in the light of Ukraine and Israel launching operationally brilliant drone attacks from the enemy’s own territory and within sight of strategic targets? How confident can we in the UK be that our enemies won’t be able to conduct such operations here? In a nation-state where actual hostile action has now emanated from a climate where aggressive hostile intent has long been signalled – but, perhaps, has become so common and tolerated that we have become inured to it.

It’s time to ban the Chelsea tractor

City dwellers across Europe will have noticed an ominous and growing presence on our streets, nudging cyclists onto pavements, looming over pedestrians crossing the road, and generally spoiling the view. It is gratifying to learn that we are neither going mad nor shrinking in the wash: cars really are becoming huge.

The bonnets of newly-sold cars across Europe now average 83.8cm in height, up from 76.9cm in 2010 – coincidentally the perfect height for caving in a toddler’s head. That’s according to a new report from Transport & Environment (T&E), an advocacy group for clean transport and energy that is campaigning against what it calls ‘carspreading’.

Ironically for a vehicle so closely associated with mums doing the school run, the Chelsea tractor is a clear danger to primary-aged children, making it much likelier that the driver will squish them into the tarmac. A similar fate awaits adults, though the lucky ones will merely absorb the impact in their torso, where they keep their vital organs. This shows there’s only one thing for it: it’s time to ban four-wheel drives from Britain’s cities.

Bluntly put, a resident of Zone 3 has no business owning a car that can trace its lineage to the Jeep, a vehicle literally built to fight Nazis. Whatever the shortcomings of Sadiq Khan, no London street is sufficiently dangerous that you need a light utility vehicle to navigate it – or at least, no street that a man who could afford a Land Rover might live in. The yummy mummies of Clapham, the financial bros of Hampstead, or the international wealth treating Chelsea as their playground – none of them should be allowed a four-wheel drive.

The growing height of car bonnets is partly down to an increasing number of SUVs, to use the American term for a four-wheel drive. T&E reckon they account for a little over half of new cars sold in Europe, with many 4×4 bonnets sitting more than a metre off the ground.

Four-wheel drives are therefore likely to account for a growing proportion of the nearly 30,000 people killed or seriously injured in Great Britain each year in road collisions. While the bulk of the roughly 1,600 deaths are car or motorcycle users, about a quarter are pedestrians.

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Such incidents are sufficiently commonplace that we don’t normally read about them. One noteworthy exception, however, did catch public attention in July 2023. Driving through Wimbledon, Claire Freemantle lost control of her Land Rover Defender and ploughed through the fence at The Study Prep school, killing eight-year-old Nuria Sajjad and Selena Lau.

Initially arrested for dangerous driving, Freemantle was eventually let off without charge on the grounds she had suffered a seizure. The case has since been reopened.

Unsurprisingly, Europeans have alighted on the old standby to any problem: more regulation. The heads of various worthy causes have written to the European Commission urging them to commit to months of fruitful work to create limits on how big new cars can be. Their suggested implementation date is a decade hence, by which point we will presumably all be driving SUVs.

The response from Brussels has been wholly inadequate, a predictably timid European disappointment. But free from the EU’s clutches, the British should act decisively: we should outlaw the Chelsea tractor on our own.

Four-wheel drives are no doubt safer for their passengers. Analysis by The Economist of American road accidents last year concluded that the fatality rate of occupants in a Ford F-350 Super Duty pickup truck was about half that of those travelling in a Honda Civic.

But such safety comes at the expense of everyone else. As cited in the same report, a 2004 paper by Michelle White of the University of California estimated that for every deadly crash a 4×4 avoids, there are 4.3 more among other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.

The negative externalities pile up from there. Larger vehicles generally pollute more, consuming more fuel to move more weight and emit more CO2. Their tyres leave more particles in the air, water and soil. They also create more potholes in the roads, such damage often being cited as a reason to own a 4×4 in the first place.

That’s alongside the sheer intimidation of a small tank driving down streets built for horses and carts, as well as the inconvenience to others when you try to park. When they aren’t running you over or polluting your lungs, Chelsea tractors make cities uglier and unpleasant for everybody else.

Yes, there should be exemptions. Any man in possession of an actual tractor may legitimately be in want of a SUV. Just as we allow farmers to shoot vermin, we should allow them to haul equipment in a four-wheel drive. Jeremy Clarkson need not return to the barricades over this policy. But as for the rest of us, there is simply no need. Get the urbanites off their tractors and back in their hatchbacks.

Why is China rushing to grow its nuclear arsenal?

China is growing its nuclear arsenal at a faster pace than any other country on the planet, according to new figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). It estimates that Beijing now has more than 600 nuclear warheads and is adding about 100 per year to its stockpile. That means that by 2035, it will have more than 1,500 warheads, still only a third of the arsenal of each of Russia and the US, but nevertheless an enormous increase and a marked shift away from its proclaimed policy of ‘minimum deterrence’.

To facilitate this expanding arsenal, China is building fields of new missile silos in its western desert regions. The Federation of American Scientists, which identified the silos via satellite imagery, has described them as ‘the most significant expansion of the Chinese nuclear arsenal ever.’

The Pentagon believes China is planning to quadruple its nuclear weapons stockpile by 2030, and its fears have been further heightened by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) tests of nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons designed to evade America’s nuclear defences. One test involved the launch of a rocket into space, which circled the globe before releasing into orbit a highly manoeuvrable hypersonic glider. The nuclear-capable glider – which has been likened to a weaponised space shuttle – had the ability to surf along the earth’s atmosphere before powering down to its target at up to five times the speed of sound (hence the hypersonic). Hypersonic weapons are far more difficult to detect and destroy than traditional ballistic missiles.

This week, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson insisted: ‘China has always adhered to the nuclear strategy of self-defence, always maintained its nuclear forces at the minimum level required for national security, and has not participated in the arms race.’ This claim is almost as hackneyed as that of China’s ‘peaceful rise’, but understanding China’s evolving military doctrine is especially challenging because Beijing ’is refusing to take part in nuclear arms control talks.

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China last year suspended talks over arms control and nuclear proliferation with the US ostensibly because of American arms sales to Taiwan. However, Beijing has always been a reluctant participant. It is engaged in one of the largest military build-ups ever seen during peacetime, yet there are none of the protocols and little of the depth of mutual knowledge about capabilities and intentions that existed and provided a level of stability during the last Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Western strategists believe that one aim of the rapid nuclear build-up is to deter America from coming to the defence of Taiwan, which China claims as its own, and which it has repeatedly threatened to invade. The thinly disguised message to Washington is that America is deluding itself if it thinks a conflict over Taiwan could be contained to the immediate area and not endanger the American homeland.

Trying to make sense of China’s military doctrine is made all the more challenging by an ongoing purge at the top of the PLA and a heightened level of intrigue surrounding both the army and the Chinese Communist party (CCP). Earlier this year, General He Weidong, the number-two officer in the PLA and a member of the CCP’s 24-strong politburo, was removed from his post. This followed the disappearance of Miao Hua, a navy admiral and one of six members (along with He) of the party’s powerful central military commission, which is chaired by President Xi Jinping.

Miao was also head of the PLA’s political works department – charged with ensuring CCP control over the military. The PLA is a party organisation, and in the military pecking order, Miao was regarded as more powerful even than defence minister Dong Jun. Rumours have also swirled that Dong himself has been under investigation. He appears to have survived, at least for now, but if deposed, he would be the third successive defence minister to face corruption charges.

China’s rocket force, the most secretive and sensitive branch of China’s military responsible for overseeing in part all those shiny new nukes, has also been the target of an extensive purge. Those targeted included the two heads of the force. Among others purged have been a navy commander responsible for the South China Sea and several others responsible for procuring equipment – long a notoriously corrupt part of the military.

When Xi came to power in 2012, he pledged to clean up the PLA, which ran a business empire so big that preparing for war often appeared to be a secondary concern. In spite (or possibly because of) Xi’s efforts, the graft only seems to have got worse – though it should be noted that ‘corruption’ is frequently used as a catch-all and a pretext for the removal of those considered insufficiently loyal to the leader. Because many of those now being targeted include Xi’s hand-picked officials, it will inevitably be seen as an indictment of his abilities and judgement.

This week’s figures from SIPRI certainly confirm the worrying extent of China’s nuclear ambitions. For the country’s top brass charged with wielding these fearsome weapons, however, navigating the corridors of power at the pinnacle of Xi Jinping’s capricious CCP is proving considerably more dangerous than the battlefield.

Is Dutch tolerance dying?

Campaigners across southern Europe are protesting against ‘touristification’. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, wealthy expats are in the firing line. Businesses in Amsterdam could be asked to foot the bill for local housing if they employ highly-skilled internationals. Alongside paranoia about asylum seekers, there is a rising feeling that expats and even holidaymakers are unwelcome in parts of the continent.

It’s not much fun to live in a place – or even visit somewhere – that resents your presence, especially if you have bothered to learn the local language and swallowed the high tax rates that fund northern Europe’s generous social benefits. But this ‘me-first’ sentiment in Europe is great news for London and anywhere else in the market for scarce global talent.

Post-Brexit ‘trading volumes shifting to Amsterdam appear to be here to stay,’ Dutch financial paper Het Financieele Dagblad jubilantly announced earlier this year. The paper claimed that ‘Amsterdam is now bigger than London’. In the aftermath of Britain’s departure from the EU, there certainly appeared to be some evidence that London’s dominance as a global financial centre might be at risk.

But – unlike the years after the 2016 EU referendum, in which the European Medicines Agency relocated to Amsterdam, and the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency loudly boasted about winning businesses, jobs and investments – there has been a change of tone. The Netherlands was once an outward-looking, tolerant, trader nation that advertised for foreign students and was proud of its English-language proficiency. Is that still the case?

Last week, Amsterdam council voted to pass a motion to ask international businesses based in the Dutch capital to contribute to solving a general housing shortage and pay for programmes to get their ‘lonely’ foreign workers to integrate. The policy, ‘Make Amsterdam your home’, sounded friendly enough, but the message behind it was anything but.

‘In short, internationalisation is part of our city but it also brings challenges, such as driving up house prices, the emergence of a parallel world and the transformation of neighbourhoods, for example because more and more English is spoken,’ it declared. Foreign companies, said the accompanying Labour press release, should be expected to give something back.

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As the Netherlands remembers 80 years of liberation from the Nazis – thanks to Allied troops, speaking that awful language of English – foreigners are being blamed for driving up house prices and sabotaging social cohesion. The facts are less important than nationalist gut feeling: the Dutch government offers 110,000 highly-skilled migrants (including footballers) a temporary tax break to compensate for its high income taxes. But despite the expats, who don’t even have a vote, benefitting our country, they are far from popular.

It doesn’t seem to matter that a government analysis found the tax break raises €128.5million (£110 million) a year, has a ‘very modest impact’ on house prices and 97 per cent of the highly-skilled professionals work full time, compared with 52 per cent of the Dutch. Nor that Statistics Netherlands research suggests that Germans and Brits lead the least segregated lives and wealthy locals the most.

The Dutch government recently collapsed in a row over asylum created by far-right veteran Geert Wilders. Universities are scrapping English-language courses and capping international student numbers. Now, Amsterdam councillors are pointing the finger at internationals for the consequences of the Netherlands’ part-time lifestyle, lack of house-building and preference for single-person households.

Meanwhile, the country continues to ignore calls from the European Commission, Dutch central bank and its own economists to reduce home owner tax breaks that inflate its housing market.

It’s easy – if absurd – to vilify other people and treat hard-working foreigners who do the jobs you can’t or won’t do as ‘exploiting’ your system. But the result is obvious: when places like the Netherlands become hostile to international business and talent, it will go elsewhere.

The failure of Dutch tolerance is a marvellous opportunity, in other words, for a place like London – where you can be judged by what you can do instead of by your name; where a finance minister doesn’t have to admit the tax office has a problem with ‘institutional racism’; and a government doesn’t fall after falsely accusing some 40,000 families of childcare benefits fraud. Non-doms might not be welcome in the UK – and Wise, the British fintech, might be leaving for New York – but filthy-rich talent is not a problem in London.

Some Dutch experts, at least, recognise that their golden age is tarnishing. To the concern of the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW), the country dropped from 4^th in 2021 to 10^th this year in the IMD’s world competitiveness ranking. The Netherlands might be ahead of the UK (29^th) with the help of its international trade, but tax policy is rated a dismal 67^th – well under Britain. The general-director of the VNO-NCW Focco Vijselaar tells The Spectator that there is cause for concern.

‘For quite some time, we have been pointing out the concrete rot in our business climate,’ he said. ‘And you see the cracks in these kinds of lists. If you look at international investment, we are at 41^st place, an unprecedentedly low spot. We are struggling with major bottlenecks in the Netherlands: a housing market that is locked down, nitrogen pollution problems and high energy prices.’

Flip-flopping on highly-skilled migrant tax breaks does not help, he added: ‘We need the expats.’

Liberal democrats in Amsterdam are also worried about scapegoating the international community. ‘That social cohesion is under pressure is not solely due to the expats,’ said Democrats 66 economics spokesman Erik Schmit last week. ‘Housing prices are rising: it is not proven that this is solely due to the international community…As a government, we have other priorities.’

But after constant changes to the 30 per cent highly skilled migrant tax-free allowance and the removal of its non-dom ruling, the Netherlands is increasingly out of favour. New foreign student numbers have plunged, threatening various courses. Data from jobs site Indeed shows a drop of 48 per cent in applications from India and 40 per cent from the UK this year. Emigration appears to have peaked and highly-skilled migrant numbers are tumbling.

Britain might have creaking infrastructure and complex regulation, but it is remarkably open and far less corrupt than many of its neighbours. If the Dutch want to drive out innovators, talent and factories with high energy prices, punitive taxes and cultural suspicion – and if southern Europe is busy fighting with tourists – other cities have a chance. Now is the time to declare Britain open for business.

What’s wrong with sleep-training your baby?

Bouncing up and down on a ball. Playing heavy metal music. Sleeping in the bedroom doorway. These are some of the desperate lengths parents resort to in order to get their children to sleep at bedtime. It sounds mad. Yet none of this will come as a surprise to parents with young children. My own four-year-old only drifts off to sleep if we both become cats for the final few minutes of bedtime. I am then obliged to say good night to him in ‘cat’: ‘Miaow, miaow-miaow’ – in case you were wondering. Still, once this is done, he does then fall asleep on his own, in his own bed, and only wakes in the night if he has a nightmare or is ill.

I must be one of the lucky ones, because a survey of 3,000 mums and dads, carried out by Survation for CBeebies Parenting, suggests that 40 per cent of parents are ‘sleep starved’, getting by on just three to five hours of sleep a night. Two-thirds said their child’s sleep pattern disrupted their own sleep.

The most glaring finding was that less than 40 per cent of parents followed a consistent bedtime routine. But we shouldn’t really be surprised, because in the UK practical baby-care advice is not readily provided to expectant parents. I do not remember at any point in either of my pregnancies anyone mentioning the importance of routine for babies.

During my first pregnancy, my husband and I joined a National Childbirth Trust (NCT) course to help us prepare. All I can recall is a traumatically graphic description of a caesarean and my introduction to the term ‘skin-on-skin’. Everyone was very excited about this, but two babies later, I still think it is massively overrated; as long as you can hold your baby, who cares what you are, or aren’t, wearing?

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The importance of routine, however, I discovered much later, around five months into being a new mother. It was a winter’s evening, it was snowing, and despite being massively sleep-deprived, I was outside trudging through the slushy streets. Why? Because pushing my baby in his pram was the only way he would sleep. Thanks to a supportive phone call from another mum, and her recommendation of an app that focused on daily routines, I finally began to understand why my son refused to go to bed before midnight: if you let a baby take a three-hour nap until 5 p.m., he will not be tired for bedtime at 7 p.m.

So transformational was this app’s month-by-month daily schedules, complete with naptimes, feeding suggestions and ‘wake windows’ (the amount of time a baby should stay awake between naps), that when I had my second baby, while still in the labour ward and less than 24 hours after giving birth, I was Googling: ‘How soon can you get a newborn baby onto a routine?’

It seems obvious now, but in the newborn trenches it’s hard to work such things out on your own; you need to be given this information. Understandably, midwives focus on the health of your pregnancy and prepare you for childbirth. But would it be so out of the question to expect a few baby-care pointers, like how many naps a day your baby should be doing in the first few months?

Sleep training is the final taboo for parents, but after doing my research, I concluded that the controlled crying method was not harmful, and would most likely be beneficial to all of us. So, when my son was six months old, we tried it out. It was not a fun week, but it was successful. From then on, bar a few occasions, he fell asleep independently and slept through the night. It was a revelation.

Keen to share my triumph with my fellow mums, I put something in my NCT WhatsApp group. Despite our collective obsession with baby sleep being a daily topic of discussion, my message was met with radio silence. Later, one of the dads in the group privately messaged my husband to ask him how he had convinced me to try out sleep training.

The NCT website dares to broach the subject, but makes it clear it is not enthusiastic about the idea:

‘The research on sleep training in the first six months of life is contradictory. One review suggested it can work for most young children but a more recent review found that sleep training does not improve outcomes for mums or babies.’

This seems misleading. New parents are much better advised to consult economist and parenting author Emily Oster. In her book, Cribsheet, she provides detail on the significant amount of data on sleep training studies available, allowing parents to make their own informed choices.

While I’m not trying to push sleep training onto anyone, I do think it strange that the very idea of teaching your child to sleep independently has become so controversial. We expect parents to teach their children how to eat with cutlery and how to dress themselves, yet the idea that we might also impart this essential skill of independent sleep is treated very differently. Perhaps parents would fare better – and sleep more – if we began having honest conversations about the practical side of caring for a baby before a mewling newborn is placed into the arms of its bewildered new mother.

Is AI eating your brain?

Do you remember long division? I do, vaguely – I certainly remember mastering it at school: that weird little maths shelter you built, with numbers cowering inside like fairytale children, and a wolf-number at the door, trying to eat them (I had quite a vivid imagination as a child). Then came the carnage as the wolf got in – but also a sweet satisfaction at the end. The answer! You’d completed the task with nothing but your brain, a pen, and a scrap of paper. You’d thought your way through it. You’d done something, mentally. You were a clever boy.

Could I do long division now? Honestly, I doubt it. I’ve lost the knack. But it doesn’t matter, because decades ago we outsourced and off-brained that job to machines – pocket calculators – and now virtually every human on earth carries a calculator in their pocket, via their phones. Consequently, we’ve all become slightly dumber, certainly less skilled, because the machines are doing all the skilful work of boring mathematics.

Long division is, of course, just one example. The same has happened to spelling, navigation, translation, even the choosing of music. Slowly, silently, frog-boilingly, we are ceding whole provinces of our minds to the machine. What’s more, if a new academic study is right, this is about to get scarily and dramatically worse (if it isn’t already worsening), as the latest AI models – from clever Claude Opus 4 to genius Gemini 2.5 Pro – supersede us in all cerebral departments.

The recent study was done by the MIT Media Lab. The boffins in Boston apparently strapped EEG caps to a group of students and set them a task: write short essays, some using their own brains, some using Google, and some with ChatGPT. The researchers then watched what happened to their neural activity.

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The results were quite shocking, though not entirely surprising: the more artificial intelligence you used, the more your actual intelligence sat down for a cuppa. Those who used no tools at all lit up the EEG: they were thinking. Those using Google sparkled somewhat less. And those relying on ChatGPT? Their brains dimmed and flickered like a guttering candle in a draughty church.

It gets worse still. The ChatGPT group not only produced the dullest prose – safe, oddly samey, you know the score – but they couldn’t even remember what they’d written. When asked to recall their essays minutes later, 78 per cent failed.

Most depressingly of all, when you took ChatGPT away, their brain activity stayed low, like a child sulking after losing its iPad. The study calls this ‘cognitive offloading’, which sounds sensible and practical, like a power station with a backup. What it really means is: the more you let the machine think for you, the harder it becomes to think at all.

And this ain’t just theory. The dulling of the mind, the lessening need for us to learn and think, is already playing out in higher education. New York Magazine’s Intelligencer recently spoke to students from Columbia, Stanford, and other colleges who now routinely offload their essays and assignments to ChatGPT.

They do this because professors can no longer reliably detect AI-generated work; detection tools fail to spot the fakes most of the time. One professor is quoted thus: ‘massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate.’

In the UK the situation’s no better. A recent Guardian investigation revealed nearly 7,000 confirmed cases of AI-assisted cheating across British universities last year – more than double the previous year, and that’s just the ones who got caught. One student admitted submitting an entire philosophy dissertation written by ChatGPT, then defending it in a viva without having read it. The result? Degrees are becoming meaningless, and the students themselves – bright, ambitious, intrinsically capable – are leaving education maybe less able than when they entered.

The inevitable endpoint of all this, for universities, is not good. Indeed, it’s terminal. Who is going to take on £80k of debt to spend three years asking AI to write essays that are then marked by overworked tutors using AI – so that no actual human does, or learns, anything? Who, in particular, is going to do this when AI means there aren’t many jobs at the end, anyhow?

I suspect 80 to 90 per cent of universities will close within the next ten years. The oldest and poshest might survive as finishing schools – expensive playgrounds where rich kids network and get laid. But almost no one will bother with that funny old ‘education’ thing – the way most people today don’t bother to learn the viola, or Serbo-Croat, or Antarctic kayaking.

Beyond education, the outlook is nearly as bad – and I very much include myself in that: my job, my profession, the writer. Here’s a concrete example. Last week I was in the Faroe Islands, at a notorious ‘beauty spot’ called Trælanípa – the ‘slave cliff’. It’s a mighty rocky precipice at the southern end of a frigid lake, where it meets the sea. The cliff is so-called because this is the place where Vikings ritually hurled unwanted slaves to their grisly deaths.

Appalled and fascinated, I realised I didn’t know much about slavery in Viking societies. It’s been largely romanticised away, as we idealise the noble, wandering Norsemen with their rugged individualism. Knowing they had slaves to wash their undercrackers rather spoils the myth.

So I asked Claude Opus 4 to write me a 10,000-word essay on ‘the history, culture and impact of slavery in Viking society.’ The result – five minutes later – was not far short of gobsmacking. Claude chose an elegant title (‘Chains of the North Wind’), then launched into a stylish, detailed, citation-rich essay. If I had stumbled on it in a library or online, I would have presumed it was the product of a top professional historian, in full command of the facts, taking a week or two to write.

But it was written by AI. In about the time it will take you to read this piece. This means most historians are doomed (like most writers). This means no one will bother learning history in order to write history. This means we all get dumber, just as the boffins in Boston are predicting.

I’d love to end on a happy note. But I’m sorry, I’m now so dim I can’t think of one. So instead, I’m going to get ChatGPT to fact-check this article – as I head to the pub.

Spain’s Pedro Sanchez won’t limp on for long

Ahead of next week’s Nato summit in The Hague, Spain’s socialist prime minister has refused to increase his country’s defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. Pedro Sánchez says that the increase, championed by President Trump and backed by Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, is ‘unreasonable’. His refusal has disrupted preparations for the summit at which all the allies were to be asked to commit to the 5 per cent target.

Spain, currently the lowest spender on defence in Nato, recently pledged to increase from 1.3 to 2 per cent of GDP. To increase to 5 per cent would cost a further €80 billion (£68 billion) a year, Sánchez said in a forthright letter sent to Rutte on Thursday. That would require tax increases and cuts to healthcare, education, pensions, green investment and the much-needed housing budget. Instead Sánchez proposed that Spain be exempted from any spending target agreed next week or at least be allowed to adopt a flexible, voluntary approach. 

Sánchez’s anti-Trump stance will be well-received by the radical left-wing and separatist parliamentary allies that prop up his fragile minority coalition government. Engulfed in corruption scandals, Sánchez desperately needs their continued support to remain in office. Allegations of kickbacks on public sector contracts and sleaze in his left-wing party emerge almost daily. Even El País, Spain’s centre-left newspaper of record whose support Sánchez can usually count on, has suggested that he should resign. 

The most damaging allegations centre on long-standing, systemic corruption in Sánchez’s inner circle. Sánchez has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to distance himself from what he calls the ‘toxic triangle’ of two former right-hand men and a close adviser. This week audio recordings in which the men, who all deny wrongdoing, discuss how to divide the kickbacks as well as the different merits and attributes of various prostitutes whose company they are preparing to enjoy have surfaced.  

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Those recordings have caused revulsion across Spain and the damage has been compounded by a series of unforced errors by Sánchez. In a parliamentary debate on Wednesday he provoked outrage by describing the corruption allegations as merely ‘an anecdote’. Previously he attempted to dismiss the importance of another recording which appears to show evidence of vote-rigging by two of the toxic trio during his election as party leader in 2014. Unimpressive too are Sánchez’s suggestions that others have done worse things and that his main problem is that he is such a trusting person that it never occurs to him that such things might be going on under his nose.   

It is not only Sánchez, though, who is showing signs of strain. Three of his ministers recently claimed that a member of the Guardia Civil police force was plotting to assassinate the prime minister. Even when the accusation, based on fake news, was shown to be false, the ministers refused to withdraw the accusation. A few weeks previously, one of the three, the Deputy Prime Minister, alarmed the public by declaring that the principle of presumption of innocence is a disgrace. When reminded that it’s actually a cornerstone of democratic freedom, she tried to pretend that she’d never suggested otherwise.

Meanwhile, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has confirmed that the President wants to see all Nato countries pay their fair share towards defence by meeting the 5 per cent target. She said that she had not yet seen ‘Spain’s comments’ but ‘would make sure the President sees them’.

But Sánchez’s resistance to the increase in defence spending may not pose a long-term obstacle for Trump. Sánchez came to power promising ‘democratic regeneration’, so the events of recent days have left his credibility in shreds. With revulsion growing and further revelations expected, it seems increasingly unlikely that his government will survive until August 2027 when the next general election is due. 

Whenever that election is held, it’s likely to usher in a right-wing coalition government of the Partido Popular and Vox. Vox in particular is strongly supportive of Trump. So, despite Spain’s pacifist tradition – a 2024 Gallup survey showed that only 29 per cent of citizens were willing to take up arms in case of war, compared to a global average of 52 per cent – Spain’s next government may well be more willing to align with Trump’s defence priorities. 

Cambridge’s next Chancellor must prioritise free speech

Writing in these pages, the venerable Charles Moore argued that, rather than holding an election (as is currently the case), Cambridge needs to appoint a Chancellor who is unspeakably grand, rich, and disinterested. I would respectfully suggest a reframing.

If Cambridge is to continue to thrive as an institution that upholds the best of its traditions, innovates, and improves the wellbeing of so many, it needs an active and engaged Chancellor to meet the challenges of a new era; and that Chancellor will only deliver on what is required if they have the backing of the majority of the Cambridge electorate. (For full disclosure, I am standing in this election which takes place in a month’s time after being approached by several of my fellow heads of Cambridge Colleges and other colleagues.) 

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Our universities, after all, are in a delicate state. They face challenges to free speech and academic freedom from both the left and the right. The breathtaking technological changes confronting us are both promising and deeply concerning. A series of external shocks has diminished our financial resilience, leaving us in a near-constant state of crisis management that weakens not only our ability to respond to unanticipated developments but also our contribution to national and international well-being. 

This is an era of innovation. Advances in AI, life sciences, robotics, green technology (and soon quantum) are reshaping what we do and how we do it. It is only a matter of time until there is greater diffusion into many sectors of the economy. Consider how quickly AI has evolved over the last two years, from answering questions to delivering assigned tasks and, increasingly, serving as a responsive companion that learns rapidly. Yet these innovations come with risks which can be deployed for a frightening range of nefarious uses. They require adaptation, standards, and safety measures. They must be paired with careful critical thinking that draws on important insights from the humanities. 

Their impact on society also intersects with long-standing challenges to our collective well-being, ranging from unequal opportunities and climate change to geopolitical conflicts that have already displaced millions, destroying lives and livelihoods. The higher education sector is at the heart of delicate balances that must be struck effectively and sustainably. To thrive, Cambridge must build on the accomplishments that have long defined its distinctiveness. For me, this place – where I am happiest, as my daughters will attest to – teaches you not just what to think but, critically, how to think. 

To my mind, it is not only crucial that the university continues to dedicate itself to academic excellence in research and protect its financial agility, but, critically, that it vigorously defends and promotes academic freedom – free speech – as the lifeblood of our intellectual community. Yes, this means listening to people with whom you disagree. Yet, by doing so, we have a better chance of advancing our collective understanding and mutual respect.

Cambridge introduced a new code of conduct last August that protects the speech of visiting speakers. For my part, I chair a Cambridge institution – the Union, which has been devoted to protecting free speech since 1815 – that hosts controversial speakers, encourages difficult debates, and respects the right of individuals to protest. The more one thinks about it, the more free speech is part of the broader effort to level the playing field for the most brilliant minds, regardless of their backgrounds. It is central to ensuring that Cambridge remains a global beacon of enlightenment and thoughtful debate, particularly on the most difficult and contentious issues. 

Even a university as distinctive as Cambridge faces new pressures that exacerbate long-standing structural weaknesses. In my many decades here – from being an undergraduate, volunteer, and donor to becoming the chair of Cambridge Union’s Board of Trustees, co-chairing with Sir Harvey McGrath the Collegiate Cambridge Capital Campaign, and elected as head of one of its largest colleges – I’ve observed how the changing face of society can throw up challenges for educational institutions. In this period of intense international conflict and enormous policy-induced volatility, we must ensure that our students are given the space to test out theories and arguments without fear of censorship and crippling financial hardship. The essential principles of academic freedom and free speech cannot be taken for granted. 

There are also challenging managerial problems: for example, establishing sustainable funding models is becoming increasingly difficult. A lack of financial agility makes it hard to respond to problems or seize new opportunities, including the increasing interest in coming to the UK on the part of academics and students who had planned to study there. Ultimately, careful management of all these issues – in a way that is both productive but ensures the discord of internal divisions is avoided – is crucial for preserving the transformative power of the university.

Some may regard the Cambridge election as a contest for prestige and ceremony. That is the last thing that this leading university needs in this new era of enormous risks and consequential opportunities. It’s about so much more. To retain its impact and beneficially impact society, our university requires an active and engaged Chancellor committed to academic excellence, financial strength and, of course, academic freedom.

The cult of the farmer’s market

Farmer’s markets are a very cheeky wheeze and we all know it. Their promise – getting back to peasants’ basics of veg yanked from the ground – carries a hefty premium compared to supermarket food, which actual peasants have to buy. Indeed, supermarket food, from veg and fruit to eggs and cheese and bread, is generally two or three times cheaper and tastes just as good.

But it seems that we are already in a world so dystopian that only the rich want – and can afford – soily spinach sold loose on a table. Certainly, the rich will queue for sorrel and strawberries, yoghurt and kimchi, raw milk, chicken and sourdough. Especially the sourdough. Carbs used to be bad, but now the queue outside places such as Lannan in Edinburgh is so long that the bakery has had to employ bouncers to control it.

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At the mouth of the Queens Park farmers’ market in north-west London – one of the most Instagrammed north of the river – is Don’t Tell Dad, a sprawling café with sourdough loaves and circular candied hazelnut croissants. These generate queues along the pretty cobbled road that are so off-putting that I will only go when it’s pouring with rain and nobody’s out. The sourdough at Dusty Knuckle in Hackney has to be booked well in advance. Pastry and bread is the treat that leavens the purchase of greens; so very many greens.

My thinking about markets has been shaped by travel. I have realised I hate foreign food markets. I always went because the internet said I had to and because the cosmopolitan middle-class milieu I inhabit has a reverence for local produce that is hard to override, even with cynicism and empty pockets.

The worst of my life were the markets in Sicily and Jerusalem. Palermo left me traumatised; tourists are baited and mocked as they timorously look at this or that vendor’s mound of veg. I came away with some tiny bag of exotic olives for €10 that should have cost €1, feeling a pathetic fool. I have even seen native Italian speakers ripped off in Sicilian markets. Sellers demand that customers speak the dialect or else face bald exploitation. It seems a bad sales strategy. And yet, so slavishly do we want what these scoundrels are selling – or rather what they represent – that it doesn’t seem to do them much harm.

Compared to the incomprehensible shouts of Mediterranean hawkers, the English farmers’ market is, of course, a blessed relief. At least I speak the language and don’t have to conjure the price of a third of a kilo of sardines while a greasy man is shouting at me. There is no shouting, no bargaining and no vernacular. Many of the people at the stalls aren’t even English.

The other great insult of the market, the sheer cost, has lessened over the past few years. Since the cost of living has shot up, the gap between the prices of greenery, eggs and fruit at the farmers’ and the supermarket has narrowed. On my most recent visit to the former, I fell for a rather wilted bunch of coriander for £2 (compared to 90p in Waitrose), and £2 for a small bunch of spinach, but the strawberries – decking every table as far as the eye could see – were quite good value, at two punnets for £5. These velvety strawbs were superior by far to Waitrose’s best organic efforts at £4 (an admittedly slightly heavier punnet).

Then there are the health considerations. As I have got older, and pore over articles and videos about microplastics and forever chemicals, the farmers’ market has a new appeal. If I buy my vegetables in brown paper bags and eat things that haven’t been sprayed too much, perhaps they will be better for me.

I have always found the idea of seasonal cooking imprisoning; surely one of the glories of late modern capitalism is that we have become free of nature’s strictures, and can eat pineapple and avocado and coconuts all year round. Why should I limit myself to courgette and asparagus in spring, tomatoes in August and apples in autumn? Why go gaga over gooseberries for two weeks in June? It’s like going to bed when the sun sets and getting up when it rises. No thank you.

Seasonal veg remains of little interest to me (is there really a difference in taste between a Spanish courgette in January and a Kentish one in May?), but seasonal fruit, I now admit, is delicious, even if it’s of the provincial English type. Once you accept the homegrown tastes of dark red stone-fruit after the exotica that our globalised palates are used to, you can begin to enjoy the fruits, if not the cost, of shopping at the farmers’ market.

Venice was built for Jeff Bezos’s wedding to Lauren Sanchez

Most cities, especially those whose survival depends on tourism, might welcome the multi-squillion-dollar wedding of the world’s third-richest man. Imagine the $500 million superyacht gliding in like a Bond villain’s aqua-lair. Think of two hundred almost-as-rich guests, spilling vintage Trentodoc. Consider the spectacular press coverage, the endless sparkle, and, not least, the 14,000 Aperol spritzes sold per hour. This event means a thousand cameras trained on the city’s finest hotels and restaurants: providing the kind of advertising that folding money cannot buy.

There is probably only one city on earth that would disfavour such an opportunity, and it is, of course, the world’s most exquisite: Venice. Which is exactly why Amazon uber-mogul Jeff Bezos has chosen it for his nuptials, as he marries former helicopter pilot, news anchor, and long-term girlfriend Lauren Sánchez. Who wouldn’t want to get married in Venice, especially if you are rich enough to hire out entire chunks of La Serenissima, and hide famous canals and churches behind golden ropes?

Trouble is, Venice is not happy. Already the world’s poster child for overtourism – Venice was the first city to charge visitors simply for showing up – it turns out Venice is as unkeen on billionaires as it is on budget daytrippers.

In recent days protesters have gathered in San Giorgio Maggiore, brandishing signs that read “No Space for Bezos.” Meanwhile protest organiser Federica Toninello told cheering crowds, “Bezos will never get to the Misericordia [a supposed venue for the ceremony]. We will line the streets with our bodies, block the canals with inflatables, dinghies, boats.”

By contrast, the mayor of Venice, conservative Luigi Brugnaro, has said he is “ashamed” of the protests, adding. “I hope that Bezos comes anyway. Not all Venetians think like the protestors.” But now the activists have turned on the mayor, accusing him of treating residents “Like a nuisance… because for him the only valid use of Venice is as a backdrop for events that make the rich richer.”

Which brings us to the first of The Venetian Hypocrisies. Anyone who knows and loves Venice – and I do, especially in winter, when the plash of gondolas hides in the mists, and the next piazzetta conceals the ghost of an assassin – understands that it is built precisely for this sort of thing.

The whole city feels gorgeously temporary, from the Grand Canal to the Rialto (it is, of course, literally sinking). But it is temporary in the way an immortally brilliant stage-set is temporary. If St Mark’s Square is “Europe’s finest drawing room” (Napoleon), then Venice in toto is a place meant for parading opulence, a carefully constructed theatre – and the world’s most magnificent urban backdrop. Exactly as the activists say.

In other words, the only job of Venice is being Venice, and it does it very well. That’s why there is a fake Venice in Vegas – Venice is so iconic people want the feeling of being in Venice even if they can’t get there. And Jeff Bezos can definitely get there.

In abjuring the Bezos nuptials from June 24 to 26, Venice is therefore denying its raison d’être. Because what, truly, is more Venetian than the Doge of Digital getting spliced beneath the campaniles?

The second of The Venetian Hypocrisies goes deeper. As mentioned, Venice genuinely struggles with the problems of overtourism – like Barcelona, Palma and all the other towns making headlines for this issue.

Anyone who has visited Venice in summer, in recent years, will know what I mean. Just before the pandemic, I mistakenly took a side-trip to the city in high season with my girlfriend, and as we squeezed onto a vaporetto along with 3,000 other people, I felt something close to panic. Horror, even. What must it be like to live this, daily? Unbearable, surely. You just want to get to the shops for some prosciutto, but there are 7,000 people taking selfies between you and the macellaio.

Which is why Venice introduced its daily entrance fee for daytrippers. However, and curiously, they set it at such a low rate – just ten euros – that it has had almost no effect. It is not a deterrent. Because let’s face it, if you’ve made it all the way to the Veneto, a charge of ten euros is not going to put you off seeing Venice. This is Venice.

Why was the charge set so low? No one can be sure, but as a travel writer I can guess. Deep down, many Venetians – from waiters to hoteliers, from gondoliers to carnival mask sellers – still want all the tourists to come, because they deliver so much money. The ten euro charge was a gesture to the disgruntled citizenry. It was never meant to actually work. How else would Venice make a living? It’s not going back to invading Croatia.

Is there a real solution to all this? Yes, there is – what’s more I believe it is sadly inevitable. But Venice is not going to like it. Many people will not like it.

Look at it this way. As more and more people become affluent enough to travel – as India moves a billion citizens into the middle class, like China before – all these new tourists will want to visit the same iconic places. Venice, New York, Paris, London; Nice, Florence, Lisbon, Santorini. Trouble is, they can’t all go there, even if they can now afford it, because Santorini would collapse under the weight.

Therefore, travel in the future will have to be rationed in some way. There are two methods of doing this. One is to restrict travel entirely and hand out access by lottery. “Mum, I won two places in Tuscany this summer!” But this won’t work, because it generates minimal revenue for the hosts – the cafés, restaurants, hotels.

So the rationing will be done by price. Travel to the most desirable locations will become the province of the rich. In other words, if Venice wants to survive and prosper via tourism – and what else can it do – it had better prepare for more Jeff Bezos, not less. And it should probably stock up on golden ropes.

Poll: majority of Brits think small boats unstoppable

Summer is here! And you know what gorgeous weather means: more small boats crossing the Channel. Get ready for the great Starmada in the coming weeks, as thousands more migrants prepare to sail the 21 miles from Calais to Dover. The current crisis has been going on since 2018, when Sajid Javid – the-then Home Secretary – felt the need to cut short his holiday after 100 migrants crossed in a 24-hour period. Those were the days…

Now Mr S has got some polling and it seems that the public are accepting these crossings as inevitable. A survey done by Merlin Strategy of 2,000 UK adults between 17 and 18 June shows that 51 per cent of Brits think that the government will never be able to stop the boats – including 7 in 10 Reform 2024 voters. Some two thirds (66 per cent) say the Starmer government does not have control over Britain’s borders while the same figure (67 per cent) believe, correctly, that the number of Channel crossings has increased this year – compared to just seven per cent who think they have dropped.

Unsurpisingly, therefore, seven in ten say the government must do whatever it takes to stop the boats. That UK-France summit cannot come soon enough…

Diane Abbott’s masterful Assisted Dying speech will come back to haunt us

If yours is a sentimental bent, you’ll have been terrifically moved by the spectacle of Jess Phillips MP giving Kim Leadbeater a big hug after the Assisted Dying Bill was passed. Ms Leadbeater has a tendency to look agonised at the best of times. When MPs paid tribute to her in the course of the debate for her compassion, she looked as if she was on the verge of bursting into tears. Now, it’ll be tears of joy – at least for her.

Quite how this reaction, and the hugs, can be elicited by a measure which will mean people can be given lethal drugs courtesy of the state is beyond me – because that’s actually what it entails – but you can dignify almost anything in our politics if you designate it as being motivated by compassion.

There was one contribution to the debate which will stay with me. It was made by Dr Neil Hudson, one of those Tory MPs who looks as if he’ll never rouse a rabble; he was in his previous incarnation, a vet. Almost apologetically, he declared that he had been involved in participating in euthanising various animals, large and small, in that job, and while he absolutely wasn’t comparing human beings with animals, he wanted to make the point that the substances and procedures were very similar to those used for humans. ‘The final act,’ he said, ‘doesn’t always go smoothly’. What a vista that conjures up. All very different from the talk in the chamber, which was all about dignity.

Hudson isn’t the first person to make this point. Several months ago, I talked at some length to parliament’s premier palliative care practitioner, Professor Ilora Finlay. Her verdict? Assisted suicide ‘was not a Hollywood death’. Not clean, not quick. Or as she observed, the length it takes actually for the drugs to work – from the experience of those countries which have euthanasia – varies enormously, from under half an hour to over a day.

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The debate has glossed over this kind of gritty stuff. In the Lords at least, where the bill goes to next, Finlay will have the chance of pointing out how the thing works in practice. She can also say that the agonising deaths that pro-euthanasia MPs described graphically, as a sort of clincher, during the debate are not necessary with proper palliative care. It took the daughter of a male hospice nurse, Labour’s Lola McEvoy, to point out that this choice, between dying with hospice provision or without it is not universally available. Making assisted suicide a ready option will, she said, ‘deprioritise good palliative care’. Masterly understatement there.

It was, moreover, the odd philosophical basis of Leadbeater’s speech as the bill’s sponsor which was most striking. Passing over her insistence that this bill wouldn’t mean more deaths (yes, Kim, we all know that everyone must die eventually, one way or another), she waxed lyrical about the way some patients could already, all by themselves, without any supervision, opt to have their life support or ventilation turned of. Yet, she suggested, MPs were making a fuss about euthanising people who did have the benefit of a supervisory panel. Look, if we can’t tell the difference between not doing something (like not opting for artificial life support), and actually – and actively – giving someone drugs that would kill them, it’s hard to know how to argue about these things at all.

But the MPs who really undermined the cant about choice were those who talked about coercion. I should right now retract all the unkind things I have ever said about Diane Abbott, Mother of the House. She was brilliant, even though she was panicking a bit when she couldn’t read her speech on her phone (go for paper!). She was utterly convincing when she dismissed witheringly the notion that, in approved cases of assisted suicide, there would have to be no police evidence of coercion. ‘There wouldn’t be!’ she said. ‘In the family the most powerful coercion is silent.’

Abbott went on to observe that ‘if the police can’t spot coercion dealing with domestic violence, why should they spot it in assisted dying?’ Her most powerful point was to look at the assembled parliamentarians and observe that every single one of them was ‘confident in dealing with authority and institutions. But what about choice for all those who all their lives have lacked agency, particularly in a family situation?’

That needed saying. It’s one thing for Esther Rantzen to say that she’ll die in a fashion of her choosing; quite another for some poor put upon individual being made to feel that they’re selfishly taking up other people’s time and money (if we’re sinking to the level of emotional anecdote, my mother, with Parkinson’s, said just that about herself). But it’s the wretched Rantzens who dominate this debate, people who’ve never been pressurised by anyone.

There was another unexpectedly brilliant contribution on coercion, Labour’s Jess Asato, who works with victims of domestic abuse. She declared that coercion was ‘a certainty’ – it would be ‘the most vulnerable people who will experience wrongful death…as a self-perceived burden’. As she pointed out, other family members will only find out about these deaths when it’s too late. She warned that ‘there can be no room for doubt, and no room for error’. Except there will be errors, but who’ll be complaining, and how? On a Ouija board?

It’s been quite the week in parliament for life and death. The vote earlier this week – for Tonia Antoniazzi’s amendment to allow mothers to abort unborn babies up to birth without criminal sanction – was to do with one end of the life spectrum; the victims being the foetuses who will die. Today’s vote was about the end, rather than the beginning of life. But allowing doctors to give drugs to ill people to bring about their death is a similarly warped notion of choice. It’s been a good week though for the hooded man with the scythe.

‘Grim’ Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying triumph is a bleak day for parliament

The portents this morning were grim. The Grim Leadreaper was doing her HR manager of Hades act, buzzing around with faux sincerity like a wasp that had discovered LGBT History Month. Jess Phillips took a great huff on her vape in the lobby before walking into the chamber. Perhaps it was sulphur flavour.

Inside the House of Commons the obviously sham last-minute ‘switcher’ Jack Abbott from the bill committee, as spineless a backbench toady as you ever did see, was there being all chummy with the unparalleled toad Jake Richards. Were they bonding perhaps over their new-found enthusiasm for death? It was Brokeback Mountain meets The Zone of Interest.

Voting began on amendments. A glut of ambitious backbench MPs rejected a safeguard brought forward by a coalition of MPs as diverse as Dame Karen Bradley for the Tories, Jim Allister for the TUV and brave and doughty Labour MPs Rachael Maskell and Jonathan Davies. It was designed to stop people from killing themselves because they felt like a burden.

Then Kim Leadbeater herself spoke. ‘It’s not often that we get to debate morality issues in parliament’, she said; just three days after parliament voted to decriminalise abortion up to birth via a sneakily tacked-on amendment and a few minutes of debate. The leisure centre operative turned supreme arbiter of life and death likes to talk about how she and her bill represent ‘parliament at its best’. The irony being that anyone who truly believes this would fail any reasonable capacity test. The concerns of the key royal colleges of experts, who’d made repeated interventions in opposition to the bill, were shrugged off as ‘different views’.

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Wera Hobhouse, the Lib Dem MP for Bath complained that some members of the public had suggested that the current crop of MPs were too stupid to discuss an issue of this magnitude. For all their faults sometimes the General Public really do hit the nail on the head. Not only were many demonstrably too stupid to engage properly, some of them couldn’t even be bothered to stay awake.

Certain moments added to the general atmosphere of despair. Jake Richards rolled his eyes and performatively scoffed as Naz Shah explained the bill’s failure to close the anorexia loophole. Labour MP Lewis Atkinson commended the work of the hospice movement in alleviating suffering at the end of life. His praise was treacly, sweet and insincere. Almost diabetes-inducing in its efforts – another disease which will no doubt qualify for state sanctioned death in due time. While scrutinising the bill on the committee, the same Lewis Atkinson also rejected conscience amendments that would have prevented hospices and care homes from being forced to provide assisted dying.

The walking embodiment of the banality of evil, Lib Dem MP Luke Taylor said that voting in favour was a good way to ‘bookend the week’. That’s the level of import MPs gave to this issue of life and death: bump off the weak to bookend your week. Many impassioned MPs never got to speak at all; Rosie Duffield left the chamber in disgust after trying to catch the Deputy Speaker’s eye for several hours, with no success.

There was some debate about whether the Prime Minister – a long term death enthusiast – would turn up to vote. In the end, he did. It was nice of Esther Rantzen to send her own personal proxy. 

It’s worth naming those Labour MPs who have gone above and beyond in their attempts to make their colleagues see sense. Those, like Rachael Maskell, who worked behind the scenes to try and put down amendments that would safeguard the vulnerable. Jess Asato, who made probably the best and most forensic speech of the debate. Diane Abbott who, despite obvious illness, rose to speak movingly about the risks of compulsion. And Adam Jogee, who left a dying relative’s bedside to come and vote because the bill’s ‘compassionate’ proposer refused to find him a supporter to pair with and so spend the last moments he had with a loved one. Do remember them: they have been principled exceptions to the otherwise disgraceful rule.

Given we are now a culture which embraces and promotes death, perhaps a post-script on political deaths. When the inevitable national inquiry delves into the abuse and shortcomings of this law – which it will – the Labour backbenchers and Tory grandees who made this possible, these back-slapping middle-management Molochs will have their names etched in history as the people who brought this about. They will achieve a sort of immortality; just not as the progressive liberators they vainly imagine themselves to be.

Secondly, while much has been written about the impending death of the Tory party, what seems to have gone unnoticed is the death of Labour as well. What once made claims to be the party of working people, a force in politics on the side of the needy and the vulnerable, has in just under a year become a death cult for comfortable progressives. The tragedy is that they will drag down the very people they purport to protect with them.

Commons passes the assisted dying bill

The House of Commons has voted in favour of assisted dying by a narrow majority of 23. After four and a half hours of debate, MPs this afternoon backed Kim Leadbeater’s bill by 314 votes to 291. That is a marked drop in support from the legislation’s second reading in November, when MPs endorsed it with a majority of 55. The bill will now go to the House of Lords, where peers will scrutinise it.

Today’s debate was striking for the number of considered speeches made across the House. Diane Abbott spoke for a sizeable chunk of MPs when she said she backed the principle of assisted dying, but was against the specifics of this legislation. Vicky Foxcroft, who resigned as a Labour whip last night over proposed welfare cuts, warned of the impact on disabled groups. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, advocates of assisted dying dwelt more on principles than on details. Leadbeater warned of the alternative: of ‘suicide attempts, post-traumatic stress disorder, lonely trips to Switzerland, police investigations’ if her bill had been rejected.

‘The fight continues,’ said one opponent of the legislation after it cleared the Commons. In the Lords, peers have mixed feelings. Some MPs who backed assisted dying are confident that a majority of peers will support the bill. But some, like Tanni Grey-Thompson, have sworn to oppose it. Others are simply infuriated by the prospect of performing a clean-up job for MPs.

Traditionally, peers do not substantively amend Private Members’ Bills. But a piece of legislation that has been chopped and changed repeatedly between second and third reading could require significant amendment between now and its implementation in law.

How did your MP vote on the assisted dying bill?

This afternoon, the assisted dying bill has passed with a majority of 23 votes, with 314 in favour and 291 against. The last few months have seen both heartfelt debate and outbursts of anger expressed from politicians across the Chamber as Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s controversial private members bill made its passage through the Commons. 

While the bill has passed today, it hasn’t been plain sailing. A number of legal and medical professionals have been vocal in expressing their concerns about the proposed legislation, while so many amendments were tabled by politicians that not all of them were able to be heard. Leadbeater has been criticised for flip-flopping on how cases would proceed – initially she wanted a high court judge sign-off, but now the bill explains an ‘expert panel’ will approve cases – while palliative care professionals hit out at the bill’s sponsor over ramping up her ‘fear’ rhetoric around death. 

Despite all that, the bill has completed its passage through the Commons. Now it’ll be down to the House of Lords to decide whether to kill the bill – or let it receive royal assent and become law. In the meantime, use the table below to find out how your MP voted…