We need look no further than this year’s John Lewis Christmas ad to see that one of the most urgent national conversations is the crisis of boyhood. Fears around the rise of the manosphere, spiralling mental health problems and loneliness among young men have made headlines, from Sir Gareth Southgate’s Richard Dimbleby lecture, in which he expressed fears that “toxic influencers” are replacing traditional father figures, to the phenomenal success of the hit Netflix series Adolescence. Now these anxieties have even crept into the UK’s reliable cultural barometer, the department store’s annual ad.

As this

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