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Hello, I'm Sam Holmes and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. Every week, a few of our favorite writers read their pieces from the latest issue.

This week, we'll hear from John Kieger on Emmanuel Macron's brand of performative diplomacy,

Mary Wakefield, on the few pros and many cons of the lady carriage,

and Sean Thomas on how learning to work from home opens the door to working in paradise.

First up, John Kieger.

Why does Macron keep meddling in international crises?

Just two months from the presidential elections,

Emmanuel Macron's self-belief and risk-taking,

not to mention setbacks, seem to know few bounds.

And no more so than in foreign affairs.

Following the French president's telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine on the 20th of February, the Elysee triumphantly announced that a Biden-Putin summit was agreed in principle,

only for the Kremlin to pour cold water

on the idea the next morning. Washington then followed suit, before Putin announced the recognition

of the two breakaway Ukrainian republics of Dinesk and Nuhansk. This humiliation comes after

Macron's Moscow visit on the 7th of February, which concluded

with a live press conference in which Putin gently put down the French president's youthful

enthusiasm and suggestion that Russia had agreed to freeze escalation.

Macron had hitherto seen himself as the great international powerbroker.

He struck up a strategic dialogue with Putin in 2019, essentially unilaterally, but on

behalf of Europe, making many in Brussels uncomfortable.

Macron laboured under the impression that he was the Putin whisperer, just as he thought he had been with Donald Trump.

...