Oil skyrockets and stocks plummet as Trump gives bombshell speech on Iran

                              

Oil prices surged more than 5% and Asian stock markets tumbled on Thursday after President Donald Trump vowed in a primetime address to pound Iran "extremely hard" for the next two to three weeks and "bring them back to the Stone Ages".

More than a month after the US and Israel launched their first attacks, it remains unclear when the war will end. Nevertheless,in his first national speech on the conflict, Mr Trump declared that US military objectives in Iran had largely been met but signalled a fresh wave of intense strikes.

He added: "We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong."

He offered no fresh details on reopening the Strait of Hormuz - the vital chokepoint for a fifth of global oil supplies that Iran has effectively closed - and instead told dependent nations to "grab it and cherish it" themselves. The US, he insisted, no longer needed Middle Eastern oil. The remarks dashed hopes of imminent de-escalation, sending Brent crude jumping to over $106 a barrel and US crude above $104.

The fallout rippled across markets. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 fell 1.4%, South Korea's Kospi dropped 3.4% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.8 % in early trading. US futures pointed to further losses. Analysts described the speech as lacking any concrete exit strategy or plan to secure the strait, fuelling fears of prolonged supply disruptions.

In the UK, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband seized on the turmoil to renew his push for renewables. Mr Miliband said: "The events of recent days are yet another reminder that the only route to energy security and sovereignty for the UK is to get off our dependence on fossil fuel markets... and on to clean home-grown power that we do control." Branding volatile oil and gas prices a "fossil fuel casino", Mr Miliband warned against gambling on geopolitical stability in an unstable world.

Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group and a former White House adviser, called the situation a "five-alarm fire across the entire economy". The absence of a US commitment to secure the strait was the main trigger for the price spike. Mr McNally asked: "If the US isn't going to secure the Strait of Hormuz, who is?"

In Asia, the pain was immediate. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung urged lawmakers to approve a 26.2 trillion won (£14.5 billion) supplementary budget to cap fuel prices - reimposed for the first time in three decades - and hand out subsidies of up to 600,000 won (£330) to struggling households. Mr Lee said: "The crisis is not a passing shower, but a massive storm of unknown duration."

Thailand saw diesel prices surge above 44 baht (£1.00) per litre after further subsidy cuts, the second sharp rise in a week. US petrol prices have already climbed past $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022, with analysts warning of knock-on effects for groceries and transport costs worldwide.

Democrats in Washington slammed the address as "incoherent". Senator Mark Warner said Mr Trump owed Americans answers on a conflict driving up prices for diesel, fertiliser and essentials. Senator Chris Murphy added that no one knew whether the US was escalating or de-escalating.

Even those who once championed the President have turned critical. Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has recently broken with the administration, slammed the focus on "WAR WAR WAR" while ignoring the "fuel crisis" hammering household bills. Ms Greene posted: "You can't gaslight people and tell them that their bills are affordable."

A New York think tank, the Soufan Center, accused Mr Trump of leaving Gulf Arab allies "in the lurch" by appearing ready to walk away from the strait while their economies depend on energy exports.

Takashi Hiroki, chief strategist at Monex, captured the market mood: investors had sought a clear timeline for de-escalation that never materialised. Mr Hiroki noted that instead, Mr Trump projected confidence that the war would "wrap up soon" even as he promised more devastation.

With global energy prices soaring and no immediate relief in sight, the speech has crystallised fears of a protracted economic shock. Whether Mr Trump's aggressive posture accelerates a breakthrough or prolongs the pain remains to be seen - but for now, markets have delivered their verdict.

Oil Prices Could Hit $200 as Experts Warn Hormuz Closure Past Mid-April Triggers Full-Blown Global Fuel Crisis

 

Markets are betting on a quick end to the war, but emergency reserves will run dry within weeks and supply losses could double.

Oil prices are on track for their largest monthly surge on record as analysts warn the global fuel crisis triggered by the Strait of Hormuz closure will get dramatically worse if the waterway isn't reopened within weeks.

Brent crude has soared nearly 60% in March, closing at $112.78 (£85.43) a barrel on Monday and surging past $115 (£87.11) in early Tuesday trading after an Iranian drone struck a fully loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker at Dubai Port.

The attack on the Al Salmi, a very large crude carrier holding 2 million barrels of oil, caused a fire and raised fears of a spill, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation confirmed.

Five weeks into the US-Israeli war on Iran, the strait that normally carries 20% of the world's oil supply remains effectively shut. But markets haven't fully priced in what's coming.

The Mid-April Supply Cliff

Marko Papic, chief geopolitical strategist at BCA Research, estimates the war has so far removed 4.5 to 5 million barrels per day from global supply, roughly 5% of the world's total. That shortfall, he wrote in a research note this week, 'will double by mid-April, becoming the largest loss of crude supply' in history.

The reason it doubles comes down to timing. Three temporary buffers have been keeping prices from spiralling even higher. The International Energy Agency (IEA) coordinated the release of 400 million barrels from strategic reserves, the largest such action in the agency's history.

Washington temporarily lifted sanctions on some Russian and Iranian oil already at sea. And President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested the war could end soon, keeping futures traders from pricing in worst-case outcomes.

All three cushions are expiring. Papic's analysis points to roughly 19 April as the moment when reserve releases and sanction waivers run dry. After that, the world has no fallback. Wood Mackenzie analysts warned last week that '$200 a barrel is not outside the realms of possibility in 2026.'

Petrol Prices Already Climbing Fast

The pain is already showing up at the pump. The US national average for a gallon of regular petrol hit $3.98 (£3.01) last week, up a full dollar from a month earlier, according to the American Automobile Association. In California, drivers are paying an average of $5.84 a gallon (£4.42), with some stations charging above $7 (£5.30).

The physical oil market tells an even more alarming story than futures. The Dubai benchmark, which tracks actual crude deliveries from the Gulf, has surged 76% since the war began to roughly $126 (£95.44) a barrel, more than double the gain in Brent paper futures.

A Global Scramble to Cut Fuel Use

Governments are already taking drastic steps. The Philippines declared a national energy emergency on 24 March and moved government offices to a four-day working week. In Australia, Victoria and Tasmania scrapped public transport fares entirely, while the federal government halved fuel excise for three months. South Korea introduced fuel price caps for the first time in three decades.

Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers and central bankers met on Monday with the IEA, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. In a joint statement, the G7 pledged to 'take all necessary measures' to stabilise the energy market, including further releases of reserves.

What Happens If the Strait Stays Shut

Goldman Sachs now expects Brent to average $85 (£64.39) a barrel across 2026, up from $77 (£58.33) in its pre-war forecast, and has raised its US recession probability to 25%. In a more severe scenario, the bank warned prices could exceed the 2008 all-time high of $147 (£111.35).

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas modelled a full-quarter closure and projected it would raise West Texas Intermediate crude to $98 (£74.23) a barrel while cutting global GDP growth by 2.9 percentage points.

Trump extended his deadline for Iran to reopen the strait to 6 April. Tehran has only hardened its position. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared it won't allow 'a litre of oil' through the waterway and warned crude will reach $200 (£151.50) a barrel.

Tuesday's tanker attack at Dubai Port is proof that the threat is growing, not shrinking.

For consumers from Manchester to Manila, every day the strait stays closed is another day prices climb higher, and reserves fall lower.

Ambassador warns that Iran is 'considering' striking British bases

 

Iran's ambassador to the UK, Seyed Ali Mousavi, has warned that Tehran is "considering" whether British bases are legitimate targets in the escalating Middle East conflict.

This consideration stems from the UK allowing the United States to use RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire for operations against Iran, which Mr Mousavi described as "very unfortunate".

He added Iranian military authorities “will decide appropriately” what course of action they will take, adding any final decision “depends on” UK activities.

Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed last week that the US has permission to use UK bases for defensive strikes against specific Iranian targets, including those threatening shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has ruled out putting British troops on the ground in Iran, saying that the UK will not be "dragged in" to the escalating war.

Tehran is “considering” whether British bases are legitimate targets in the unfolding Middle East conflict, the Iranian ambassador to the UK has warned.

The UK has been allowing the United States to use RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire to launch operations against Iran – something Seyed Ali Mousavi described as being “very unfortunate”.

Speaking to Times Radio, he said: “The initial position made by prime minister Starmer is very good.

“We do appreciate [it], we do welcome the non-involvement in this criminal act of the American side and the Israeli regime.

“But unfortunately, now we have realised that the British Fairford military base has been serving for the B2 and B1, you know, jets of the American side to be equipped with different weapons to use against the Iranian people. It’s very unfortunate.”

Starmer says he won't be bullied by US as Trump threatens to quit NATO

Sir Keir Starmer has dismissed Donald Trump's revelation that he is strongly considering pulling the United States ⁠out of Nato as “noise”.

The US President described the military alliance ⁠as a “paper tiger” ​and ⁠said he had long held doubts about its credibility.

“Oh yes, ⁠I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration,” Mr Trump told the Telegraph when asked whether he would reconsider the US’s Nato membership after ‌the Middle East conflict.

“I was ​never swayed by ‌Nato. I always ⁠knew they were ⁠a paper tiger, and Putin knows ‌that ​too, by the ‌way.”

The interview was published on Wednesday as Trump prepared to deliver an address to the nation on the Iran war and ahead of Sir Keir’s press conference on the economic impact of the conflict.

The Prime Minister said he will act in the British national interest “whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise” and vowed closer ties with European nations.

Asked about Trump’s latest remarks on the transatlantic military alliance, Sir Keir said: “Firstly, Nato is the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen, and it has kept us safe for many decades, and we are fully committed to Nato.

“Secondly, that whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I'm going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions that I make.

“And that's why I've been absolutely clear that this is not our war and we're not going to get dragged into it.

“But I'm equally clear that, when it comes to defence and security and our economic future, we have to have closer ties with Europe. That's why we had the summit last year.

“This year, as I've just announced, there'll be a further summit. There, we will make good on equipment that we put in place last year, but we will also go further in relation to the alignment.”

The White House has announced that Mr Trump will give an “important update on Iran” in a national address at 9pm EDT on Wednesday (2am BST on Thursday).

It came after the President signalled he will end his war with Iran “soon” - even if Tehran fails to agree to a deal.

“We’ll be leaving ⁠very soon,” he told reporters at the White House on Tuesday night, saying the exit could take place “within two weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three.”

Asked if successful diplomacy was a prerequisite for the US to end what it calls Operation Epic Fury, Trump said it was not.

“Iran doesn’t have to make a deal, no,” he said. “No, they don’t have to make a deal with me.”

Trump’s comments triggered a sharp fall in the price of oil. The price of a barrel of Brent Crude dropped from $119 to below $104 in just 45 minutes.

Washington had previously threatened to intensify operations if Tehran did not accept a 15-point US ceasefire framework that had among its core demands that Iran commit not to pursue nuclear weapons, halt all uranium enrichment and fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, told Fox News Channel’s Hannity programme there was potential for a meeting between both sides “at some point” and the United ​States could “see ⁠the finish line”.

“It’s not today, it’s not tomorrow, but it is coming,” Mr Rubio added.

Still, the conflict continued on Wednesday with attacks reported on both sides. Drones hit fuel tanks at Kuwait’s international airport causing a big blaze and authorities in Bahrain reporting a fire at an undisclosed company facility from an Iranian attack.

A tanker was hit by an unknown ⁠projectile near the Qatari capital Doha causing damage to the hull at the waterline, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said, adding the crew were safe.

Explosions were heard in multiple areas of Tehran early Wednesday ​after US-Israeli air attacks, ⁠Iranian state media reported, adding that its air defences were activated. Shahid Haghani Port, ‌Iran’s largest passenger terminal located in Bandar Abbas port on the Gulf, was hit by an overnight air strike but there were no casualties, the deputy governor Ahmad Nafisi told state media, calling it a “criminal” attack against civilian infrastructure.

Since fighting began in Iran, oil prices have soared in response to Tehran’s block on tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Families with a 55-litre diesel car face paying more than £100 at the pump for the first time since December 2022.

It comes as Trump alleged on his Truth Social platform that the UK was among several countries which “can’t get jet fuel” ahead of the Easter bank holiday weekend - a claim which industry body Airlines UK has refuted.

The US president said the UK and other countries which did not take part in strikes against Iran should secure the Strait of Hormuz themselves.

The US president wrote online: “All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, buy from the US, we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.

“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us.”

RAC figures on Tuesday showed average diesel prices at UK forecourts were 182.8p per litre, up 40p since the start of the conflict, which brought the cost of filling up a 55-litre family car to £100.52.


The average cost of petrol is 152.8p per litre, an increase of 20p since the war began.

Panicked Putin goes into hiding as Kremlin caught using 'pre-recorded' footage

Vladimir Putin appears to have gone into hiding amid the ongoing US-Israeli assault on Iran - with the Kremlin allegedly using pre-recorded footage to trick Russian citizens. State media broadcast two supposedly "new" videos of the Russian leader on March 2 and 3, using footage that had actually been recorded earlier, according to the investigative outlet Sistema. The meetings with Russian officials were presented by the Kremlin press service and loyal media as taking place on the days they aired, but analysts spotted a key giveaway detail - the houseplants in Putin's Kremlin office.

Sistema published a report on how the condition of two aglaonema plants in the background of the president's office videos could be used to identify when the footage was actually filmed last month. While the Kremlin quietly replaced the plants with new ones, seemingly in response to the investigation, the meetings aired earlier this month showed old, yellowing foliage, suggesting they were filmed earlier and recycled as Putin grapples with the US-Israeli attack on Iran.

The US and Israel launched a huge military operation against Iran on February 28, striking targets in Tehran and other cities and killing the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Putin has closely allied himself to Iran's hardline government, cemented by a 20-year pact signed in January 2025 that covered military, economic and security cooperation.

The Russian leader continued normal diplomatic activity during the outbreak of conflict - holding phone calls with the leaders of the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Hungary, according to Kremlin briefings.

However, his PR machine released no photographs or videos of the Russian leader during those calls.

The apparent release of staged or delayed footage to conceal gaps in the president's public schedule could allow Putin to lie low as he decides on Russia's next moves following the major strikes aimed at topping his allies.

It wouldn't be the first time the Kremlin had been accused of using such a "canned footage" ploy, with Sistema finding 18 instances of "new" meetings being shown on Russian television using pre-recorded video in 2025 alone.

The latest instance has revived questions about the Kremlin's closely-managed presentation of Putin's activities, however, alongside suspicion that he prefers to keep a low profile during moments of major international crisis.

Russia sharing intelligence to help Iran strike US military

Russia is providing Iran with intelligence to strike American military targets in the Middle East, it has been reported.

Moscow began to pass the Islamic Republic information on the positions of US forces as soon as the war began on Saturday, the Washington Post reported, citing three US officials familiar with the matter.

The information allowed “sophisticated” attacks by Iranian missiles and drones against US radar facilities, warships and aircraft. It also made it possible to target temporary structures not possible to spot with Iran’s own satellites, including the facility in Kuwait where six US soldiers were killed.

The report, which The Telegraph has not been able to independently confirm, marks the first sign of Russia’s active participation in the expanding conflict.

One official said: “It does seem like it’s a fairly comprehensive effort.”

Vladimir Putin has long objected to the US providing satellite intelligence to the Ukrainian military, and now appears to be responding in kind.

While Iran has only a small number of military-grade satellites, Moscow has many and has honed their capabilities in its war with Ukraine.

“The Russians are more than aware of the assistance that we’re giving the Ukrainians,” a US official told the Post. “I think they were very happy to try to get some payback.”

“Much [of Russia’s support to Iran] will be space based imagery,” said Mike Petersen, principal research scientist at the Centre for Naval Analyses, a federally funded organisation tied to the US military.

“This is good for knowing what bases are being used when, and what aircraft may be parked. It can allow Iran to temporarily slow or halt airfield ops,” he wrote on X.

“Russia may also provide locations on intelligence stations in the region, allowing Iran to put them under drone attack,” Mr Petersen added. Moscow’s satellites can also snoop on US communications so Iran can “understand strategic force dispositions”.

But Mr Petersen pointed out that the US had prepared to “operate in environments like this for years”, and would have “countermeasures for these eventualities”.

Before the war, China reportedly provided Iran with technology to help rebuild its ballistic missile arsenal, which the 12-day war last June had slashed.

However, Beijing has not intervened to provide concrete assistance in the current conflict, two officials told the Washington Post.

Neither Russia nor China’s foreign office responded to requests for comment.

Moscow has around 110 military satellites in orbit, while Iran has around 13 that are still operational, with three registered to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

On Thursday, Adml Brad Cooper, the head of US central command, announced that US strikes had destroyed Iran’s military space force.

“We’ve also struck Iran’s equivalent of Space Command, which degrades their ability to threaten Americans,” he said.

However, experts doubt it had the ability to do so in the first place.

“They were not a threat in space capabilities,” Victoria Samson, head of the non-profit Secure World Foundation, told the Defense One website. “The threat that they have [is] for counter-space capabilities, they’re great at jamming and spoofing.”

According to the US space force, Russia’s own space capabilities have suffered in recent years. The number of satellite launches has declined amid “funding shortfalls, international isolation and broader societal problems”.

Increasingly, Moscow relies on civil and commercial satellite imagery for the war in Ukraine, the US space force reports in its fact sheet on foreign threats. That includes purchases from the Chinese company Spacety.

Why we all want baby girls now (and I did too)

I kept my secret for the long and broadly enjoyable nine months of my pregnancy. But as soon as my daughter was born, I could let it out. Thank God it’s a girl!

My husband and I decided not to find out the sex of our unborn child at the 20-week scan, as many parents do. It’s our first, we said. Let it be a glorious surprise. But when it came to thinking of baby names, I could only think of ideas for girls. Scores of options emerged while, curiously, I had only one potential name for a baby boy.

I guess I couldn’t imagine having one. Although my husband has two brothers, I have two sisters and between us we have five daughters and a son, which means that girls outnumber boys 9:5 across three generations or 8:4 across two. None of us has ever owned a male pet, and when my dad raised the issue of getting a dog with balls last year, we all objected. In that instance, we were overruled by the patriarchy.

Girl preference

Once I had a baby girl in my arms, I felt able to admit it had always been my preference. But this scenario is wildly different to one population forecasters say may well emerge in the near future, in which new parents are cuddling baby girls not by happy coincidence, but thanks to sex-selective IVF.

Already legal in the US, Mexico and the UAE, if it becomes the norm, it will contribute to a demographic shift happening across the globe. After centuries of male domination, the past two decades reveal an extremely sharp rise in the number of baby girls born each year, closing a large gender gap that has historically favoured boys.

Last week, The Economist reported that in 2000 there were 1.6 million “missing” girls from the global population, due to infanticide and abortion. This year, the number is 200,000 and falling. The magazine posed the radical question of what the world might look like if this imbalance were flipped. Would it be better or worse? The short answer: “It would not be as bad as too many men.”

Nathalie Renders, 45, is bringing up three boys aged between five and 12 in Dubai with her husband, though they are from the UK. She didn’t think about gender when pregnant with her first two, she says, as the focus was on having healthy babies. By the time she had her third, they did find out he was going to be a boy, but only out of practicality – to check she had the right clothes. “I wasn’t the kind of Mum who wanted to dress a girl up,” she says.

They moved back to the UK for a year when her first two boys were young. “What struck me was the difference in how I felt being a parent back in the UK with boy children. I was getting more concerned for their safety as they grew up. In particular around knife crime.”

The family moved back to Dubai, where sex-selective IVF is legal. “I do know people who have gone down that route after having two or three of one gender and wanting something different,” Renders says. “Sometimes it’s worked, and sometimes it hasn’t.”

“If I get comments of ‘Oh, three boys! You’ll need to try for a girl,” it typically comes from people from Asian countries. When I ask why, they might say, so there’s someone to look after you, or someone you can teach to cook. Occasionally people say surely you want another female in the house. But me and the cat are super happy.”

Sperm-sorting, as it’s colloquially known, is only available to a very small proportion of rich prospective parents, just like ultrasounds 50 years ago. But as soon as scans became cheap and commonplace, families all over the world, especially in cultures where girls were seen as a burden, began to abort female foetuses. Technological advances suggest that women could soon be able to buy kits that test their blood for gender weeks into a pregnancy.

In previous centuries, boys have been viewed as the breadwinners, and as simply ‘better’ than girls. In countries where culture and religion further undermine the value of women, misogyny has led to devastating trends for the murder and abortion of females. But these countries, in particular large Asian nations such as China, India and South Korea, have been stealthily dropping their desire for boy babies.

Meanwhile, girl preference is booming all over the developed world, from the sperm-sorting north Americans to emerging evidence suggesting that girls are first choice in Scandinavia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Portugal. In Finland, this was detected by statistics showing that families who have a girl first are likely to have fewer children overall. If the firstborn is a boy, they keep trying. In the US, adoptive parents will pay up to $16,000 (£12,000) more for a girl, according to a 2010 study by a team of economists from the London School of Economics, The California Institute of Technology and New York University.

Natural order

More men are born naturally, with a global ratio of 105 boys to every 100 girls. This ratio remains unchanged in the UK. As boys are marginally more likely to die young, there should be roughly the same number of men and women when they reach reproductive age.

But this ratio skewed further in the late twentieth century. In China, where the one-child law disadvantaged girls, there was a high of 117.8 boys to every 100 girls born in 2006. In India, the ratio was 109.6 in 2010. In South Korea in 1990, it was 115.7. Today these disparities have shrunk to 109.8 in China and 106.8 in India. In South Korea the balance is back to normal.

A friend in China who is in her early forties tells me that she doubts anyone in her generation would still think a boy is preferable. She grew up in London, but asks a colleague in his thirties who grew up in China, for his opinion. “Among those of my generation, no one prefers boys,” he says. “The one above us, yes, but not those of my age. In fact, many of us prefer girls.”

Money remains an issue. “For a boy, you have to buy a property for him to start a family, whereas for a girl it’s cheaper as you don’t have to,” he explains. “At the end of the day, you give her away. Girls study harder, they sit still, they’re easier to manage.”

Gender disappointment

A much stronger sentiment than that of preferring, secretly or otherwise, boys or girls, is active regret over giving birth to the ‘wrong’ sex. In countries like the US, where ‘gender reveal’ parties have become popular, the fallout is a slew of ‘gender disappointment’ clips on social media, in which couples, who have gathered their nearest and dearest together to reveal the results of an ultrasound scan, get a nasty surprise and cannot hide their devastation at the prospect of becoming a #boymom.

One Mumsnet user writes that she feels “embarrassed, stressed, upset and really anxious” about the gender disappointment she experienced during pregnancy. “I’ve had points where I feel like I’d rather not be pregnant than have a boy – and I don’t know why I feel like this.”

Another mother says she is devastated to be pregnant with her third boy. “Not to be having boys, but because I will never raise a child with the shared experience of being female.”

The trouble with boys

Given that boys have such a bad reputation, if we can’t change the narrative about dangerous men and toxic masculinity, why would anyone want one? Ninety-three per cent of the global prison population is male. It is men who subjugate women, submit them to sexual violence, and kill them. They start wars to kill each other. They are also more likely to kill themselves.

In the UK specifically, though it’s a universal trend, there is a much-discussed fear about the lost future of generations of boys who have been taught they are innately bad. There is no gender gap in the UK yet we are all quaking at the chilling story depicted in recent Netflix drama Adolescence, in which a young teenager fatally stabs a teenage girl because, it transpires, she was taunting his manhood.

Male rage

The lack of female partners has led to the phenomenon of angry single men, their fury fanned by influencers like Andrew Tate, who has successfully convinced potentially millions of men worldwide that women are disposable belongings. He is hugely popular, and YouTube reportedly still profits from his content, despite a ban.

In China, single men are known as ‘bare branches’. In the west, they call themselves “incels” – involuntarily celibate. Everywhere, sexually frustrated single men appear to blame more than their lack of a decent shag on women. Studies have linked the gender gap to increased rape and violent crime. Of the 145 mass shootings in the US between 1982 and December, just four were carried out by women and two by mixed-sex attackers.

On a global level, I’m all for more girls and the potential reduction in all kinds of crime it should cause. On a personal level, while I’m happy with my daughter, I know that in the long run, I would have been just as happy with a son.

As a parent, if you take yourself down the route of thinking having one sex or another will lead to a specific kind of child, a predetermined childhood, I think you are setting yourself up for failure. No one can predict that a daughter will enjoy cooking or shopping with them, or that a boy will prove your perfect footy companion. If we claim to prefer girls or boys for these reasons, we are only cementing the gender norms women have fought for years to tear down.