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

This week, we'll hear from Lionel Shriver on how the Biden's administration border policies are a gift for Trump and the Republicans.

Kit Wilson, on what we can expect from Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse, Peter Hannington on his love of haikus,

and finally, Robert Porter's notes on the bagpipes.

First up, Lionel Shriver.

Brace yourselves for Kamala Harris v. Donald Trump,

2024, by Lionel Shriver.

For Democrats, like the insurrection of January 6th, the Trump policy of separating illegal immigrant parents from their

children in 2018 has been the political gift that's kept on giving ever since. In 2020, the

conspicuously inhumane protocol provided a rally in cry for candidates in the primaries, and later for

Biden as nominee. True, the policy did have a rationale beyond sheer sadism. American law restricts the

number of days border agents may detain the underage and likewise constrains children's deportation.

As migrants are better versed on American immigration statutes than most lawyers, savvy incomers,

meaning most incomers, were rocking up on U.S. soil with kids in tow, not always their own, as guarantees

of release from custody, leaving them in the country home free. If children were dealt with independently,

at least the parents could be sent packing. Never mind its moral dubiety, family separation was a political catastrophe.

Although minors were confined by the same chain link that encloses basketball and tennis courts,

the Dems incessant charge that Trump put children in cages entailed inspired branding.

Detention facilities are for people. Cages are for animals.

Trump chucked his zero tolerance policy of May 2018 by June, but the damage was done. For years, the New York

Times and PBS NewsHour continued to run long packages about traumatized immigrant children

...