Society

Sunday

Joshua Young

AI is rotting our children’s minds

‘He’s more machine than man now’, complains Obi-Wan Kenobi of his notoriously fallen apprentice Darth Vader in Star Wars. The same thought crossed my mind last week in the wake of the worst betrayal I have suffered as an English tutor. Something is wrong when your favourite pupil uses AI to generate the two-line reference they had offered to write for you, making you sound even blander than feared. ‘Ottillie,’ – not her real name – I blurted, ‘how could you?’ The reply was endearing but terribly ominous: ‘I wanted it to be perfect.’ ChatGPT is already shockingly good, much better than most people admit. Get it to rewrite itself to sound less like

Lana Hempsall

Motability won’t give up its lucrative business without a fight

Motability, the scheme set up to provide vehicles, scooters and powered wheelchairs to disabled people, has become something of a monster. By the end of 2024, Motability supported a staggering 815,000 vehicles, up by 200,000 in the last two years alone. It is clear that the scheme has extended way beyond its original purpose and is in dire need of reform. But Motability is determined not to give up its lucrative business model without a fight. Only five per cent of Motability cars are adapted for those with physical disabilities Andrew Miller, the scheme’s chief executive, has hit back at criticism of Motability. ‘We’ve been a business all along. Any sense

James Ray

How to be a better father

Children in this country are desperate for fathers to rise to the occasion. All the research indicates that a key determinant of a child’s ability to flourish – to make a success of growing up – is having a father actively involved in his or her life. Having a decent dad in the picture is vital. The affection of a father can prove one of the most authoritative things in a child’s life. A million British children have no meaningful relationship or regular contact with their fathers We mustn’t give up on that ideal. But nor should we ignore reality. A million British children have no meaningful relationship or regular

Saturday

Chas Newkey-Burden

David Beckham deserves his knighthood

Leonardo DiCaprio got his Oscar after 23 years. King Charles was crowned after 70 years. And now David Beckham will finally get his knighthood. Good things come to those who wait – and how Beckham has waited. It’s no secret that Goldenballs has been gasping for a knighthood for a long time, nor that the former England captain has worked tirelessly for one, but he’s not lacking in stamina or focus. As a teenager, he stayed behind on his own for hours after training to continue working on his technique. That attitude served him well in his epic quest for a knighthood.  Beckham was first put forward in 2011 after

Mike Pitts

The impossible politics of ‘ancestral remains’

In 2002 the remains of Sarah Baartman were buried in her South African homeland. She was among thousands of people around the world from whom body parts were collected in recent centuries and stored or displayed in museums. You might think, as tastes and norms change, returning these remains to their communities a simple thing. But a recent report from an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Afrikan Reparations urging such action has proved controversial among archaeologists. The APPG, chaired by Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, sets out its recommendations in a policy brief called Laying Ancestors to Rest. It calls for the outlawing of the sale of human remains, an inquiry into the use

Friday

Brian Mathew

Life is too precious for assisted dying

Assisted dying has attracted for me, and no doubt many other MPs, far more mail than any other issue. The weight of this mail on either side of the argument has been pretty much the same. It has also involved more surgery discussions than any other subject, and an online meeting for my constituents, which around a hundred people participated in. The interest and passion on both sides of the argument has been immense, but so has been the respect that all have given to this sensitive topic. Technically the bill’s proposers and the committee have done an impressive piece of work. They included a suggestion I made that social workers also be a part of the

Chas Newkey-Burden

What is the point of the RSPCA?

The secretly-filmed footage is a horror show. Hens are desperately trying to escape as they suffocate in a gas chamber. The birds, which are being killed for supermarket meat because they’re past their egg-laying days, gasp for breath. They appear to cry out as they die slowly. The floor of the gas chamber is littered with dead bodies. The RSPCA increasingly feels like a relic that has lost its way Should we phone the RSPCA? Oh, someone already did. The animal welfare charity’s response? While it acknowledged that the footage was deeply upsetting, it said that using carbon dioxide to gas chickens was permitted under RSPCA welfare standards: ‘This can

Kristina Murkett

The sad decline of reading

At secondary school open days, English teachers are always asked the same questions by anxious parents of year six students: How do I get my child to read more? Why has my child suddenly stopped reading? What books would you recommend to make reading less of a chore? For too many children (and adults), reading has become like swimming upstream This apprehension is not surprising. Reading enjoyment among children and young people has fallen to its lowest level in two decades, according to research by the National Literacy Trust. The decline is particularly pronounced in teenage boys, of whom only a quarter said they enjoyed reading in their spare time.

Sean Thomas

Sean Thomas, John Power, Susie Mesure, Olivia Potts and Rory Sutherland

22 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Sean Thomas reflects on the era of lads mags (1:07); John Power reveals those unfairly gaming the social housing system (6:15); Susie Moss reviews Ripeness by Sarah Moss (11:31); Olivia Potts explains the importance of sausage rolls (14:21); and, Rory Sutherland speaks in defence of the Trump playbook (18:09).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

Dominic Cummings

Westminster must fall

Dominic Cummings delivered a Pharos Lecture in Oxford this week on why western regimes are in crisis. Here is an edited transcript of his speech: The old political parties, the old Whitehall institutions, the old media, the old universities, the old courts constitute a political regime. This regime has become cancerous. The cancer has metastasised and the cancer is attacking everything healthy in the country; all the healthy institutions and healthy impulses are the target of Whitehall. If you imagine our ancestors who built our civilisation over generations, looking at a sample of recent years, what would they see? They’d see the regime fighting to maintain secrecy of the vast

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

How good was Brian Wilson?

I recently did an online quiz to name the 100 biggest selling pop and rock acts in the USA. The Beatles came top – the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Queen and so on, along with the homegrown stuff: Elvis, the Eagles and Chicago. Noticeable by their complete absence were the Beach Boys. In the late sixties and early seventies they were often considered superior artists to the Beatles by American critics. I don’t think many would have that view now. It is not so much that their stock has fallen, simply that they now seem a rather lovely idiosyncrasy rather than at the very top of the division. Wilson was,

Alexander Larman

The tragedy of Brian Wilson’s life

The late Brian Wilson, who has died aged 82, once had his songs, which included modern-day classics such as ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Good Vibrations’, described as ‘pocket symphonies to God’. For just about any other artist, such a description would be grandiloquent tosh. Yet in the case of Wilson, who struggled with personal demons that all but consumed him after a brief, brilliant flourish of early success, such praise is entirely justified. It is little wonder that his friend and rival Paul McCartney was inspired to write Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band after hearing the Beach Boys’ masterpiece Pet Sounds for the first time. That album was thrillingly

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Why isn’t the BBC telling us what caused the Ballymena riots?

Does anyone know what’s actually happening in Ballymena, in Northern Ireland? If you’ve just been following the news on the BBC, it’s actually quite hard to work out what has led to the violence which has injured at least 32 police officers. The initial news bulletins told us that there rioting youths were protesting about a sexual attack on a girl and that two teenage boys were in custody facing charges. My first thought – reverting to the Troubles – was that there was a sectarian element to the whole thing. But we also learned that the police condemned the riots as racist thuggery; so, not sectarianism, it seems, but

Louise Perry

Porn Britannia, Xi’s absence & no more lonely hearts?

47 min listen

OnlyFans is giving the Treasury what it wants – but should we be concerned? ‘OnlyFans,’ writes Louise Perry, ‘is the most profitable content subscription service in the world.’ Yet ‘the vast majority of its content creators make very little from it’. So why are around 4 per cent of young British women selling their wares on the site? ‘Imitating Bonnie Blue and Lily Phillips – currently locked in a competition to have sex with the most men in a day – isn’t pleasant.’ OnlyFans gives women ‘the sexual attention and money of hundreds and even thousands of men’. The result is ‘a cascade of depravity’ that Perry wouldn’t wish on

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Has deporting illegals become illegal?

The circus around Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia – whose full name the New York Times likes to trot out as if citing an old-school English aristocrat – speaks volumes about the immigration battle roiling the US. Our friend Kilmar is what we fuddy-duddies insist on calling an illegal immigrant. The Salvadoran crossed clandestinely into the US in 2012. As for what he’s done since, that depends on whom you ask. According to his GoFundMe page, Kilmar is a ‘husband, union worker and father of a disabled five-year-old’. Left-wing media portray ‘the Maryland man’ – a tag akin to Axel Rudakubana’s ‘a Welshman’ – as an industrious metalworker devoted to his

Ysenda Maxtone Graham

The depressing rise of ‘direct cremations’

Twenty per cent of last year’s funerals in Britain were direct cremations – up from 14 per cent in 2020. Numbers are continuing to rise, fast, for this most affordable, clinical form of body disposal: cremations with no ceremony and no attendees. Daytime advertising campaigns put out by corporate firms such as Pure Cremation promote the peace of mind of sprightly 75-year-olds at their laptops, or in their conservatories with mugs of tea, who have just pre-paid for the direct cremation package. In the adverts they gush about the future family knees-up, with cupcakes and balloons, that their relatives will splash out on with the money saved by not paying

The Spectator

Letters: How ‘Nick’ could save the Tories

Dying wish Sir: As a 99-year-old with, presently, no intention of requesting assistance to die, I am struck by the articles of Dan Hitchens and Tom Tugendhat (‘Bitter end’ and ‘Killing me softly’, 7 June), which base their strong opposition on the opinions of everyone other than the person supposed to be requesting such assistance. He or she, poor soul, is expected to just lie there and listen to whether they are to be allowed to have any opinion at all on the matter. It’s my life they are writing about. At present I have the ability to end it whenever I might wish. What Messers Hitchens and Tugendhat are

The Spectator

How many countries have banned the burqa?

Behind the veil How many countries have banned the burqa? At least 24 have placed some restrictions around the wearing of full-face coverings in public, although in most cases it applies only in public buildings. Interestingly, they encompass liberal democracies and dictatorships, Muslim-dominated and non Muslim-dominated countries. They are: Algeria, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Chad, China, Denmark, France (general ban in public), Gabon, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. In Afghanistan, the wearing of a burqa or niqab (which has a slit for the eyes) is compulsory for women. Degrees of separation Is it still worth going to university? –

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Can Pope Leo end the liturgy wars?

Last weekend, under windswept banners depicting the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, nearly 20,000 young pilgrims marched through fields and forests between the cathedrals of Paris and Chartres. All of them carried rosaries and chanted in Latin, sometimes breathlessly: it’s a punishing 60-mile trek through mud and rocks. Each ‘chapter’ of the column was accompanied by priests. Like the lay pilgrims – drawn from 30 countries but dominated by French teenagers in scouting uniform – they wore backpacks and trainers, but also full-length cassocks or habits. They were traditionalists and so were the young people: despite their informality, they were utterly committed to intricate Latin worship. Making

Peter Jones

Elon Musk and the art of flattery

Flattery will get you everywhere, as the sycophants that surround Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping know. Which makes Elon Musk’s defection rather interesting. Trump’s policies meant that Musk simply could not flatter him any more just to satisfy his inexhaustible self-love, which, says the Greek essayist, biographer and diplomat Plutarch (d. c. ad 120), is what gives the kolax (‘flatterer’) his foothold: the person he wishes to flatter, his victim, will be only too happy for the kolax to endlessly proclaim his qualities and abilities. Naturally, the kolax does not pay attention to poor, obscure or unimportant persons – where is the gain in that? –