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Mary Wakefield

Mary Wakefield

The Spectator

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The nuclear family? We blew it up years ago

15.12.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Arts / ‘When a work lands the excitement is physical’: William Kentridge interviewed

Watching William Kentridge’s film Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot is like being submerged inside his mind, inside the coffee pot maybe. There’s so...

28.11.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Books / We need to learn to pray again

In The Spectator’s basement kitchen a few weeks ago, I cornered a young colleague, Angus Colwell, and asked him what he made of Rod Dreher’s new...

22.11.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

America / How to process your Trump trauma (with orange soup)

It’s amazing how many people have responded to what they think of as the shattering catastrophe of Donald Trump’s victory by crafting: making rag...

14.11.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

End of the affair / My AI boyfriend turned psycho

Last week it was reported that a 14-year-old boy, Sewell Setzer, killed himself for the love of a chatbot, a robot companion devised by a company...

31.10.2024 9

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

WWII / The rehabilitation of evil

One of the many good reasons to want every new generation to study the second world war is that it forces you to confront your own cowardice. Last...

17.10.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

France / Pornography and the truth about the Pelicot case

There have been protests in 30 cities across France, people marching in outrage over the case of Dominique Pelicot who drugged his wife Gisèle and...

05.10.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Ticking the boxes / The adult ADHD trap

I was on the bus recently and bored when I decided not to ignore but to answer one of those online questionnaires about adult ADHD. It was on...

19.09.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Cult thinking / No one will change their mind about Hamas

Earlier this summer, my son and I biked over to fashionable east Hackney where it’s normal to pay £4.20 for a coffee and £3 for a croissant and...

09.09.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Why children have stopped reading

It’s only when you read the old stories again, to a child maybe, that you become aware of the extent to which the characters still live inside your...

08.08.2024 9

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

America / Why Elon Musk is right to leave California

Not long before Joe Biden finally accepted defeat, Gavin Newsom, the 56-year-old governor of California, was on the stump for him in Bucks County,...

29.07.2024 40

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Email etiquette / Why was Jeremy Hunt SHOUTING AT ME?

Robert Jenrick, once immigration minister and still, just, MP for Newark, said on Sunday that the Tories lost not because ‘they had this slogan or...

11.07.2024 6

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Called up / Tory men are letting down women

Some of my good male friends, Tories, are sick of terfs. I can see it in their shifty eyes, in the way they won’t quite look at me when terfy issues...

02.07.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Messianic gleam / America is in trouble if Gavin Newsom succeeds Biden

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California is everywhere at the moment, earnestly assuring Americans of his unwavering loyalty to poor, senile Biden,...

28.06.2024 9

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Lessons from Ladybird / There’s something very wrong with children’s history books

The first editor I worked for was Charles Moore and, like many of his old and ageing former staff, I still think of him as the boss. We’re like...

13.06.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Dating game / Why are so many young people ‘asexual’?

Who could have foreseen that half a century after the sexual revolution we’d be facing its exact opposite: an asexual revolution? There’s a crisis...

16.05.2024 20

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Stiff upper lip / Why send children to therapy?

I’ve been reading a book by the American journalist Abigail Shrier – Bad Therapy – which describes just how demented our obsession has become...

02.05.2024 30

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Red handed / Clean up the MoD graffiti!

Mary Wakefield has narrated this article for you to listen to. When I first saw the Ministry of Defence building splattered in blood-red paint, I...

19.04.2024 20

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

The ‘luxury beliefs’ that harm vulnerable children

Now that everyone insists that the oppressed must be lifted up – or platformed, if you’re that way inclined: why does no one in the West give a...

04.04.2024 9

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Slave to the screen / How to cure your phone addiction

Somehow, I’ve lost the ‘Light Phone’ that I bought to replace the dumb phone that I hoped would break my addiction to the iPhone. The Light...

07.03.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Post-truth / When trans rights trump babies’ rights

There are a fair few trans women – men who want to be seen as ladies – who long to breastfeed real babies, and some who actually give it a good...

22.02.2024 6

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

For dog’s sake / XL Bullies deserve to be banned

Sometimes the realisation that you’ve been completely wrong for decades creeps up on you slowly, and at other times it’s a revelation, a light...

08.02.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Snooping with love / 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....

25.01.2024 4

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Cracked / The US opioid crisis has come to Britain

‘Never do drugs, you’ll be hooked instantly,’ my mother used to say, and though I nodded, I never even considered paying attention. So I don’t...

11.01.2024 10

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

‘The culture of complaint disgusts me’: Werner Herzog on walking without a backpack and the kindness of strangers

When the American director Errol Morris saw Werner Herzog’s film Fata Morgana for the first time, he was heard to mutter: ‘I didn’t know anyone...

14.12.2023 6

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

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