Catherine Lafferty

Friday

Catherine Lafferty

Catherine Lafferty, Michael Simmons, Paul Wood, Philip Hensher, Isabel Hardman and Damian Thompson

From our UK edition

39 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Catherine Lafferty argues that the drive to reduce teenage pregnancies enabled grooming gangs (1:27); following Luke Littler’s world championship victory, Michael Simmons says that Gen Z is ruining darts (6:32); Paul Wood looks at the return of Isis, and America’s unlikely ally in its fight against the terrorist group (10:35); Philip Hensher reviews a new biography of the Brothers Grimm by Ann Schmiesing, and looks at how words can be as dangerous as war (17:57); Isabel Hardman highlights the new garden now open at the Natural History Museum (26:57); and, Damian Thompson reveals he watched videos of plane crashes to distract himself from the US election coverage – why? (31:40).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

Catherine Lafferty

How the drive to end teen pregnancies aided the grooming gangs

From our UK edition

How did the depraved cruelty of Britain’s grooming gangs go on for so long, so openly and with such seeming impunity? One overlooked but vitally important element of the scandal is that over the past 30 years the lines of defence girls had against sex crimes were deliberately taken down in the drive to reduce the country’s number of teenage pregnancies. Britain’s stubbornly high teenage pregnancy rate was the stuff of dozens of newspaper columns The first and most important line of defence any girl will have against male predation is usually her own family.

Friday

Catherine Lafferty

The Vatican’s sinister deal with Beijing

From our UK edition

24 min listen

Next month, the Vatican will talk to Beijing about renewing its 2018 deal with the Chinese Communist Party that effectively allowed President Xi to choose the country's Catholic bishops. He has used this power to force Catholics loyal to Rome to join the puppet Catholic church set up by Chairman Mao in the 1950s. They can no longer refuse on the grounds that they recognise only the Pope's Church because Francis himself has validated the orders of Xi's party stooges.  But the Holy Father has done more than that: he has ostentatiously failed to condemn China's savage assaults on human rights, the worst of which is its attempt to eradicate the country's Muslim Uyghurs ethnic minority by herding them into concentration camps and forcing Uighur women to have abortions.