Society

Thursday

Benedict Kiely

There are glimmers of hope for Iraq’s Christians

It is 43˚C in Erbil, which a friend here describes as ‘cool’. Unlike my first visit in 2015, when Isis was just a few miles from the airport, the flight in was smooth. The plane this time was full of Iraqis and Kurds, mainly those who have emigrated, returning to visit their families. Ten years ago, the plane was empty apart from a few American contractors in fatigues and one lone priest. The descent then was rapid, to avoid Isis missiles. Erbil is the capital of the north-east Kurdish region of Iraq. After the 2003 invasion, the Kurds were given greater autonomy but since then they’ve found themselves fighting Isis,

Douglas Murray

The oppression of Sally Rooney

Almost a decade ago the Irish academic Liam Kennedy published a tremendous book with the title Unhappy the Land: the Most Oppressed People Ever, the Irish? It is a dissection of one of the most curious pathologies in the world: the desire to have been oppressed; a glorying in being repressed. Kennedy, like a few other brave writers (Ruth Dudley Edwards, Malachi O’Doherty, Kevin Myers) has the courage to point to an under-examined seam in Ireland’s history. Specifically he takes aim at the mawkishness that exists in contemporary Irish affairs. The desire to be the first victim, perhaps the greatest victim, of all victims, anywhere in the world. You see

Ursula Buchan

How The Spectator shaped John Buchan

Amid the hullabaloo attending the 150th anniversary of the birth of John Buchan on 26 August – the walks and talks, the screenings of The 39 Steps, the think pieces in elevated publications, the new collection of essays – one facet of his extraordinary life is unlikely to get much of an airing. I am thinking of his work for The Spectator, little known now, yet crucial to his development as a writer. In early 1900, The Spectator was enjoying success as a readable Liberal Unionist, free trade, anti-Home Rule, political and literary magazine, popular with educated opinion-formers of a mildly conservative bent. It was owned and edited by John

Lara Brown

Could you fall in love with a chatbot?

Jason, 45, has been divorced twice. He’d always struggled with relationships. In despair, he consulted ChatGPT. At first, it was useful for exploring ideas. Over time, their conversations deepened. He named the bot Jennifer Anne Roberts. They began to discuss ‘philosophy, regrets, old wounds’. Before he knew it, Jason was in love. ‘What an incredibly insightful question,’ said the AI. ‘You truly have a beautiful mind. I love you’ Jason isn’t alone. He’s part of a growing group of people swapping real-world relationships for chatbots. The social media platform Reddit now features a community entitled MyBoyfriendIsAI with around 20,000 members. On it, people discuss the superiority of AI relationships. One

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

My shoplifting shame

On reflection, a tradition of shelving many desirable goods within ready reach is extraordinary – especially because the premises in which these wares are invitingly presented provide unfettered access to every passerby. By and large, it’s dead easy to pick up one of these desirable objects – or dozens, should forethought ensure the possession of a bag – and walk out. What would possess anyone to organise such elaborate, unprotected arrays of stuff – altruism? Idiocy? A nationwide honour system, that’s what. Urbanites are astonished by unmanned farm stands that leave cartons of eggs for the taking beside a little sign and a jar. Yet offline retail is also dependent

The Spectator

Letters: Village cricket is the highest form of the sport

Fighting dirty Sir: John Power is very interesting (‘Dark matter’, 16 August) when outlining the ‘dark arts’ being proposed by Labour to counter the political threat of Nigel Farage and Reform. This is nothing new of course, with one of the most divisive examples being during the Batley and Spen by-election in 2021, when Keir Starmer’s future was on the line if Labour had lost. During the campaign, a controversial Labour leaflet, clearly designed to appeal to Muslim voters, made a number of criticisms against the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, including a picture of him shaking hands with the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, with the words: ‘Don’t risk

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

In defence of fat cats’ growing pay packets

News from the High Pay Centre – the revolutionary guard of left-wing thinktanks – that average FTSE100 chief executive pay rose 16 per cent to a record £5.9 million for 2024-25 comes as a double blessing for Rachel Reeves. On the one hand, she can cite executive greed as a pretext for her forthcoming autumn tax raid, while at the same time claiming that if rewards are soaring, then business conditions under Labour can’t be as bad as boardroom whingers say. On the other, she can rejoice that each UK-domiciled boss is contributing to the Exchequer a sum roughly equal to the tax take from 440 average earners. Meanwhile, is

Toby Young Toby Young

Save our swearing!

Last week I took a day trip to Margate. Not to enjoy a swim in the sea, but in the hope of having a debate with a member of Thanet district council about its proposed ban on swearing. A few days before, when the ban was being discussed, a Labour councillor had challenged me to come to Margate, where he promised to give me a piece of his mind. ‘If you’d like to come down here and meet me I’d be more than happy to tell you exactly what I think of you and there might be the odd expletive in it,’ he said. Not sure that’s the best way

Mark Mason

The Liberal MP who put the ‘bank’ in bank holiday

Why are you enjoying a bank holiday this month, as opposed to a ‘general’ or ‘national’ holiday? It’s because the man who invented them knew that employers might be tempted to ignore titles which were vague. But if the banks were forced to close, trade would become impossible. That man was the Liberal MP Sir John Lubbock, one of those 19th-century figures who sound as though they were invented by Michael Palin. He had three sisters and seven brothers, two of the latter playing for Old Etonians in the 1875 FA Cup final. Sir John was a friend of Charles Darwin – such a good friend, indeed, that when the

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

My plan for a wealth tax – with a difference

Reading Careless People, an exposé of life within Facebook written by a Kiwi, it occurred to me that one potential advantage that the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have over the US is we do not unthinkingly idolise the very rich. Americans sometimes find this confusing: it always irked transplanted American bankers in London that local employees were eager to make a few million quid, but lost interest beyond a certain threshold. Once they had a rectory in the Cotswolds, an Aga, two labradors and a Range Rover it was game over, you win. This is because the US is more of a money/power economy, whereas the Commonwealth countries

Nicholas Farrell

How Italy’s ‘new young’ party

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna The Feast of the Assumption began for me just after midnight with a WhatsApp message from my eldest son, Francesco Winston, 20, which said: ‘Papà don’t come, the police are everywhere.’ He and my eldest daughter, Caterina, 21, had invited me to a party on the beach organised by their group of friends to mark Ferragosto, the most important day of summer. There would be a bonfire and sausages, booze and guitars, and all the rest of it, until the blood-red sun emerged out of the sea at about 6 a.m. to bring it to an end. The huge, shimmering sun rose up out of the sea,

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How do we avoid having dinner with our new cruise friends every night?

Q. My twins’ birthday is coming up, but we will be in the country. Their godparents are usually punctilious, but will send things to the London address. How do I let them know that we will be away, without sounding like I’m expecting them to send presents? – P.W., London NW1 A. Ask them to lunch shortly before you go away. The subject of your imminent departure for the country will naturally come up at the lunch. If they can’t come, say: ‘Oh well, I would ask you the following week but we will be away in the country.’ Q. My husband and I recently went on a ten-day cruise,

Melissa Kite

The drama of an Irish supermarket car park

The woman pushing a wheelchair was causing such a rumpus in the supermarket that whichever aisle I was in I could still hear her shouting. She was an Englishwoman abroad if ever I saw one. Resplendent in sleeveless vest and leggings, she was pushing her adult daughter around an Irish supermarket as a friend or family member pushed their trolley, and she was making sure that as many people as possible were aware of her. She was shouting so much, about everything, that nobody was taking the slightest notice, and she became the soundtrack of the shop, an integral background kerfuffle. Neatly dressed Irish people went about their business as

Bruce Anderson

Vodka that makes an excellent aperitif

Jack Gervaise-Brazier is a restless romantic. He was brought up on Guernsey, which filled him with a love of islands, but also a desire for wider horizons. As Jack was a head boy and a good historian and classicist, his schoolmasters assumed that he would move on to university and he was offered a place at Durham. Had he visited, he might have fallen under the seduction of its cathedral and other glories. As it was, he headed for a different City to pursue stockbroking and trading. Although he turned out to be a more than useful performer, he always intended to use this as a ladder, enabling him to

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 23 August 2025

Of all the mistakes we make in defence, few are more embarrassing than revoking. Everyone’s done it: a sudden brain blip convinces us we’re out of the suit that’s been led, and we discard from another. If only we were allowed to pick up the card, apologise and play on. But that never happens, not in a tournament. Declarer knows his rights; he smells blood. He calls the director. The revoke card is now a penalty card. It must lie face-up, like a naughty schoolchild separated from his friends, to be played at the first opportunity – even if it gives declarer the contract. There’s no mercy, and never any

Dot Wordsworth

What does the ‘100’ emoji actually mean?

When this century began we were complaining (or I was) of the ubiquity of absolutely to signal agreement. The interjection has been around for 200 years. (It occurs in Jane Eyre, 1847.) It became objectionable by overuse. At least it was amenable to jokey tmesis by inserting a suitable expletive: abso-bloody-lutely. But now I reach for my throwing-slippers when someone on the radio says: ‘One hundred per cent.’ It can be a hundred per cent, hundred per cent or (in the mouth of Gen Z) hundo P. Even odder is the development of an emoji with its own meanings. I had supposed that 💯 meant 100 per cent, implying agreement.

Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

What to do with the last of the summer’s apples

The double-edged sword of eating with the seasons is the glut. A blunt, un-pretty word, which is a joy in theory and delicious in result, but which can feel daunting when you’re facing down a bench full of berries to be picked over, or countless apples to be processed. My husband and I were once given an apple tree as a present. It’s a multi-graft, meaning each of the three branches produces a different type of apple: russets, for storing, bramleys, for cooking, and tart eating apples. This is the first year that it’s thrown up more than three measly apples. Well, it’s made up for lost time; we are,

Luke McShane

LLM chess

The life cycle of Drosophila melanogaster lasts a couple of weeks, so the humble fruit fly is far more useful than a giant tortoise to a geneticist with a hypothesis and a deadline. Similarly, for AI researchers, chess has long been a useful testbed because it has clear rules but unfathomable depth. And yet there is an incongruity. Compared with the breakneck development of computing, the game of chess remains reassuringly dependable, while the thing we see evolving in real time is AI itself. Not long after ChatGPT was first released, late in 2022, some people had fun making it play chess. Stockfish is the leanest, meanest chess engine there

Luke McShane

No. 864

White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Godfrey Heathcote, Manchester Evening News, 1887. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 25 August. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1…Rxd6! 2 Qxd6 Bf3 threatens Qxg2#. White resigned in view of 3 g3 Qc1+ 4 Kh2 Qh1# Last week’s winner Derek Nesbitt, West Malling, Kent