Hello and welcome to the edition. Each week we look at some of the most important and intriguing

issues in the week's magazine with the writers behind them. I'm Lara Prendergast.

This week, how are the Taliban now going to run Afghanistan?

Plus, should women worry about the COVID vaccine's effect on their menstrual cycle?

And finally, what are the joys of retiring from the country to London?

First up, in this week's spectator, we dedicate a large

section of the magazine to the situation unfolding in Afghanistan, stretching over four features.

I'm joined now by two of the authors of them, Paul Wood, the journalist, and our own deputy editor,

Freddie Gray. Paul, what's your assessment of what we know so far about the Taliban's new leadership?

Well, this is not your father's Taliban. In one way, they are tougher and meaner, as Ryan Crocker,

the former US ambassador said, as a result of many long years of combat with American and Afghan

forces. But in another way, they have been surprisingly sophisticated and remarkably

conciliatory. They have waged a masterful diplomatic campaign, as I wrote in the piece, over the

past year or two, to get the US off the battlefield, to distract the Afghan government with

meaningless talks, and all the time to make progress

on the ground. They have managed to reassure their enemies. In each province, you've seen people

simply switching sides as the result of deals with the Taliban, Gulvedin Hekmatia, for instance,

a warlord that Ashraf Ghani, the now fled president, called upon to help him, had

already switched sides to the Taliban. So they've been very, very smart. They have had media teams

traveling with them, filming them, not killing their prisoners, not looting, trying to enforce law

and order. And as a result, we have had so far a surprisingly peaceful

transition of power. To the extent, for instance, that the former head of security at the

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