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Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. Each week we choose some of our favourite pieces

from the magazine and ask their

writers to read them aloud. I'm Patrick Gibbons and on this week's podcast, Max Jeffrey

reports on the rising number of luxury watch thefts in London. Melanie McDonough discusses the collapse

of religion in Scotland. In the aftermath of the Diane Abbott selection row, Matthew Paris reflects

on what it could mean for Kirstama and explains why shrewd plans need faultless execution. With the 80th

anniversary of the D-Day landings this week, Ian McGregor reviews Giles Milton's new book, The Stalin

Affair, the Impossible Alliance that won the war. And finally, looking back at her former suitors, Petronella

Wyatt ponderes her lack of luck with love. Up first, Max Jeffrey. London has become a jungle, right?

Anyone with anything nice risks having it taken. Bobby, the manager of one of Hatton Gardens watch shops,

does business in a windowless room as far from the street as possible, watched over by a thick-set guard and a couple security cameras.

I'm a paranoid person, he says, and he's right to be.

While the level of general theft in London is going down, more and more luxury watches are stolen every year. Tens of millions of pounds worth.

There's no sophistication to stealing a watch. Gangs smash into shops with machetes or rip them off from wearer's wrists.

Last week, Oliver White, a watch broker in South West London, had three million pounds worth of watches stolen.

Two men convinced him to show them some of the shop

...