Society

Thursday

George Llewelyn

Barbie’s Oscars snub isn’t sexist

Not for the first time, Hillary Clinton is outraged. Reacting to the news that Barbie star, Margot Robbie, and the film’s director, Greta Gerwig, missed out on Oscar nominations, Clinton sent a message to the pair: ‘Greta & Margot, while it can sting to win the box office but not take home the gold, your millions of fans love you. You’re both so much more than Kenough.’ But the truth is that sexism isn’t to blame for the decision to snub Barbie. The reason Barbie won’t be picking up many gongs at the Oscars is that it just isn’t a very good film. The way Barbie deals with its central feminist conceit is

Arash Azizi

Airstrikes won’t stop the Houthis’ Red Sea attacks

It was less than two weeks ago that the US and UK introduced a new element to the multi-faceted conflict in the Middle East. On 12 January they carried out joint strikes against the Houthis, a militia that controls Yemen’s capital Sanaa and large parts of Yemeni territory and is recognised as the country’s government by its main backer, Iran. The UK and US strikes came in response to weeks of Houthi attacks on ships passing through the Red Sea. The militia claimed its attacks were in response to Israel’s assault on Gaza but in practice it was targeting any and all shipping in the area as well as US

Alexander Larman

The hubris of Harry and Meghan’s Jamaican photoshoot

What is it like to be Prince Harry? Spare gave us a peerless insight into the unhappy, loveless life of a frustrated young man who was saved from a downward spiral into depression and addiction by the intervention of a saintly actress from Suits – for which we must all surely be grateful. But it increasingly seems as if everything that Harry does in the public domain is dictated by a mixture of hubris and aggression. Every photoshoot and every public statement is tinged with some underlying meaning. His latest stunt is no exception. On Tuesday night, Harry and Meghan were photographed with Andrew Holness, the prime minister of Jamaica,

Jawad Iqbal

Is Saudi Arabia softening its booze ban?

Saudi Arabia, an Islamic nation where drinking alcohol is strictly forbidden, is to get its first official liquor store. There’s just one catch: only foreign diplomats will be able to buy booze there. The store in the capital Riyadh’s Diplomatic Quarter will remain off-limits to Muslims and, needless to say, ordinary Saudis. For a handful of lucky diplomats, the shop’s opening will spell an end to having to import alcohol via a diplomatic pouch or sealed official package. Yet the purchase of their favourite tipple won’t be straightforward. They will need to apply for clearance through a mobile app administered by Saudi officials. There will also be strict limits on how much

Max Pemberton

Beware the ‘K Hole’

Go to any nightclub and, if you know what to look for, you will see people on ketamine. You can spot them because, unlike those who have taken ecstasy or cocaine, they stand nearly motionless, struggling to move. They appear lost in a self-inflicted paralysis. This is called a ‘K-hole’– a state induced when ketamine is taken in large doses, causing a person to slip into a dissociative state. It can be terrifying: they are temporarily unable to interact, and even move. Users feel separated from their body and reality. Time is grossly distorted: hours passing can feel like a few minutes. Anyone who works in A&E will see people

The Spectator

Letters: Jesus was a wine connoisseur 

Benefits of abstinence Sir: In last week’s Spectator, I turned to the cover piece ‘Dry Britain’ first because I stopped drinking alcohol last January. However, contrary to the demographic expectations of your article, I am a not-young 58-year-old. My abstinence is not based on a moral position, nor fear of an appearance on TikTok, but on the fact that three people I knew of my age and younger sadly passed away in the past year. One was directly due to the effects of alcohol, and in the other two cases alcohol was a likely factor. A year ago I was relatively fit, healthy and slim in comparison to the majority

Peter Jones

What’s wrong with populism?

As elections approach and arguments become more strident, the term ‘populism’ becomes more and more thrown about, as if it is a bad thing, a form of demagoguery. But what populists do is to represent themselves as champions of ‘real’ people whose interests are completely ignored by the elite. What can be wrong with that? Let the ancient Greeks help out. In Greek, dêmagôgos was a neutral term meaning ‘leader of the people’, and in this sense was used of Pericles (d. 429 bc). But it could be used to describe a rabble rouser. The most famous example was Cleon (d. 422 bc), described by the historian Thucydides (who hated him)

Rachel Johnson

Princess Anne and Kate Moss: the best of British style

At first I didn’t realise it was Fashion Week. In Paris, there are always androgynous men in kilts stalking the boulevards and straggle-haired waifs who’ve forgotten their skirts rushing from one shoot to another, but there did seem to be more men with nose rings and Louis Vuitton city-shorts prancing about than usual. We passed a crowd of black-clad votaries standing in the icy lemon sunshine on the Avenue George V. I asked a photographer what they were waiting for. ‘Le défilé de Givenchy,’ he snapped, as if only a fool could be unaware it was the third day of Menswear Paris Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2024-25. At least he did

Quentin Letts

The customer is never right

Penny Mordaunt, who carried her sword with such panache at the coronation, has called for 2024 to become the year we ‘make the consumer the king again’. I like Mordaunt. You should see the way she demolishes her Labour and Scots Nats counterparts in the Commons. But with her call for customers to be treated as monarchs, she may face an unwinnable battle. Businesses regard customers not as kings but as potential muggers, racists and a thoroughly dodgy lot. ‘Le client n’a jamais tort,’ said the hotelier César Ritz (d.1918), and he made a fortune. The more common attitude among today’s business owners, particularly in London, is that le client

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Is it wrong to track my child?

One evening a few weeks ago, I was pottering about alone when I became aware of a feeling of great relief, of joy almost, without quite knowing why. When you spend every waking moment with a seven-year-old, it often feels euphoric to be alone, but that wasn’t it. By mistake, I’d left my phone behind, but that wasn’t quite it either. It wasn’t that I couldn’t be contacted, I realised, so much as that I couldn’t be tracked. My iPhone, with its inbuilt GPS, was at home logging only its own dismal existence. The ‘Find My Friends’ function, which, at my family’s request I keep switched on, was defunct. I

Owen Matthews

Ukraine’s new strategy hits Russia where it hurts

Ukraine is fighting not one but two hot wars against Russia. The first, a conventional, bloody land war along an 810-mile front line, has descended into stalemate. But the second – drone and missile strikes and sabotage raids deep into enemy territory – may prove to be a game-changing strategy for hitting Russia where it hurts. Last week, two Ukrainian kamikaze drones scored a spectacular hit on an oil and gas refinery and an oil export terminal in Ust-Luga near St Petersburg. At a range of 775 miles from Ukraine, the strike has severely dented Russian ability to produce and export naphtha, jet fuel and gasoil, and export liquefied natural

The Spectator

Could Nikki Haley become the first female US president? 

Madame president If Donald Trump stumbles before election day, could Nikki Haley end up becoming the first female US president? Hillary Clinton failed as the first female presidential candidate in 2016, but she wasn’t the first to stand on a presidential ticket: that honour belongs to the now-forgotten Geraldine A. Ferraro, who was picked by Walter Mondale to be his Democratic running mate in the 1984 election. Mondale had hoped to win over women voters, but his tactic appeared to backfire when a poll soon after her selection showed only 22 per cent of women voters approved of Mondale’s choice and three in five of all voters believed he had

Ross Clark Ross Clark

How to pass Harvard’s unconscious bias exam

Like Prince Harry, I never knew I had unconscious bias until it was pointed out to me, but now it has been I know I will have to do something about it. Except that in my case that ‘something’ is not to moan to Oprah Winfrey about members of my family speculating on the colour of my baby’s skin. It is to dig a little deeper and ask: do I really have an inner Ku Klux Klan that is controlling all I do and preventing me from becoming a good person? I had heard of unconscious bias training on many occasions – not least when the then Cabinet Office minister

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Everyone should eat venison

Well, lucky little tiny tots at Top Days nurseries in Hampshire and Dorset. It’s Bambi on the menu for them now that the organisation running the schools has teamed up with the Eat Wild company, which promotes wild meats, to introduce venison into school lunches. They’re rolling out five dishes featuring venison, including deer mince in spaghetti bolognese and burgers. Some 3,000 children will benefit, and there will be more when the scheme is introduced in other schools. It is the obvious and sane solution to the problem of an ever-increasing deer population, short of introducing wolves to cull the creatures, which nowadays have no natural predators. The children get

Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

‘The perfect winter snack’: how to make flammekueche

There are times in the year that call for snacks. Rather than embracing the various diets and other forms of self-flagellation that sweep over us at the start of the year, we need every joy we can get during endless January, with its dark, short days and cold nights. Right now, we are in such territory. Open those posh crisps, order the triple-cooked chips, invite joy in. I have strong ideas about the platonic snack for winter: something hot, ideally, to accompany a glass of something cold as you while away the dark evenings. The ideal contrast between crisp and yielding, sweet and salty – something that can be picked

Toby Young Toby Young

Anti-vaxxers aren’t to blame for rising measles cases

The UK Health Security Agency is sufficiently concerned about the growing number of measles cases in the West Midlands that it declared a ‘national incident’ last week. According to official figures, there have been 216 confirmed and 103 probable measles cases in the region since last October. The cause? The uptake of the MMR vaccine is at its lowest level in more than a decade, according to Dame Jenny Harries, CEO of the UKHSA. For some, this is proof of the ‘harm’ that anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists can do if greater efforts aren’t made to silence them. A leading article in the Times blamed the outbreak on ‘disease disinformation’, accusing

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Football needs its own Mr Bates

Did football officials watch Mr Bates vs The Post Office? They should have – and learned from it. Otherwise they could be next in the crosshairs of a TV dramatist. Just as the Post Office failed to act as they should have done to protect sub-postmasters, football – and rugby for that matter – is showing no noticeable signs of urgency to look after its players despite growing evidence that both sports are contributing to long-term brain damage. Day after day we see young men heading the ball with an indifference that gives you a headache just to watch A debate in parliament on the issue last September which referred

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: how do I check my friends have bought my book? 

Q. I am executor of a deceased bachelor whose will is clear that I should distribute his estate to his long-standing friends. There is no mention of what to do with family photos and heirlooms, which have little market value, but he hung on to them for sentimental reasons. I had thought to offer them to his two surviving blood relatives who are second cousins (and siblings to one another) and who, apart from a small pecuniary legacy, get nothing. Unfortunately, these relatives don’t talk to each other and cannot agree to fair shares each. What should I do? – D.L., Newcastle-under-Lyme A. Issue a photographic inventory of the sentimental

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

‘I pity MPs more than ever’: the Cinnamon Club, reviewed

The Cinnamon Club appears on lists of MPs favourite restaurants: if they can still eat this late into a parliament. It lives in the old Westminster Library on Great Smith Street, a curiously bloodless part of London, and an irresistible metaphor wherever you are. When once you ate knowledge, you now eat flesh, but only if you can afford it. Now there is the Charing Cross Library, which lives next to the Garrick Theatre, and looks curiously oppressed. Perhaps soon it will be a falafel shack and knows it. There is also the Central Reference Library, which could be a KFC, and soon will be. Public spaces are shrinking. They