The Monocle Minute

As Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, boarded a flight for the Cop29 climate summit in Baku, which started yesterday, he left behind an angry nation. The country is still reeling from Valencia’s October floods, which killed more than 200 people. Over the weekend, at least 100,000 people took to the streets to protest against the authorities’ response to the disaster. From the royal family to politicians, no one has been spared the blame. The king had mud hurled at him, while Sánchez had to be evacuated from an angry crowd. But perhaps the most venting has been targeted at Carlos Mazón, Valencia’s regional head, who has been berated for his five-hour lunch with a journalist that made him late for an emergency meeting.

As the planet warms, extreme-weather phenomena will become increasingly common across the globe, from the eastern seaboard of the US to the Asian subcontinent. We urgently need to find better ways to prepare for them. Often the problem isn’t a lack of satellite data warning us of what’s coming – it’s our leaders. As Spain’s recovery continues and people seek answers, politicians have both passed the buck and stopped short of fully blaming anyone. Sánchez, who introduced a new aid package on Monday, has not called for Mazón to resign – which he could still do – and has also defended his environment minister, Teresa Ribera, saying that the world needs more people like her.

Spain is clearly susceptible to climate-change-related crises, lurching from olive-destroying drought to flash flooding. The prime minister seemed happy to jump on a plane to play international statesman at a summit that many have already written off – but he needs to realise that he must do more at home. The country’s future depends on it.

Ed Stocker is Monocle’s Europe editor at large. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

When the coalition between Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito lost its majority in last month’s snap election, Shigeru Ishiba’s tenure as prime minister seemed destined to be short-lived. But yesterday the Japanese parliament re-elected the LDP leader at the start of a special four-day session. With no candidate securing a clear majority in the first round in the lower house, the contest progressed to a rare run-off between Ishiba and Yoshihiko Noda, the leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

Ishiba is now expected to lead a minority government. There had been talk of the LDP and Komeito joining forces with the small but suddenly influential Democratic Party for the People but that seems to have been scotched by a scandal: the latter party’s leader, Yuichiro Tamaki, started his day with a press conference and a public apology after a tabloid investigation exposed an extramarital affair. Twenty-four hours are a long time in politics.

Sotheby’s Geneva will present its inaugural Royal & Noble Jewels sale tomorrow. One lot in particular is expected to dazzle potential buyers: an 18th-century 300-carat diamond necklace linked to a scandal that helped to bring about the French Revolution and the downfall of the country’s last queen, Marie Antoinette. The opulent piece features diamonds believed to be from a necklace that was originally commissioned by a French noblewoman, Jeanne de la Motte, who forged letters to acquire it using Marie Antoinette’s name.

Though a trial found that Antoinette had not participated in the scheme to defraud the Crown’s jewellers, the incident permanently damaged her reputation. “At the time, something with 500 individual diamonds was unheard of,” says Tobias Kormind, co-founder and manager of British jewellery brand 77 Diamonds. At tomorrow’s auction, the necklace is expected to fetch up to €2.35m. “Investors will be interested because of the heritage,” Kormind tells Monocle Radio’s The Globalist. “Museums and private investors will be competing for this.”

US cruise company Villa Vie Residences is offering travellers the chance to escape the country’s polarised post-election climate by setting sail on a three-and-a-half-year trip around the world. The aptly named vessel, Villa Vie Odyssey, departed from Belfast on 3 October after almost four months of delays and is now en route to Bridgetown in Barbados, one of the 147 countries that it will visit across six continents.

All-inclusive tickets for the 42-month sojourn start at about €240,000 for a single-occupancy cabin and increase to €300,000 for a two-person berth. The organisers of the cruise insist that it isn’t a gimmick: as of February 2024, 70 per cent of cabins had been sold. There are also “Midterm Selection” packages for those who want to avoid the US political landscape until after the 2026 midterm elections.

Isis-Colombe Combréas, the founder of Milk Magazine, is now applying her finely tuned lifestyle lens to interiors as editor in chief of a major new quarterly. Harper’s Bazaar Intérieurs is out now and published by Harper’s Bazaar France, which launched in 2023. Here, she tells us about the magazine.

Does ‘Harper’s Bazaar Intérieurs’ represent an expansion of the ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ brand in France?
Yes. Following the successful launch of Harper’s Bazaar France last year, Prisma Media, a large company in France, decided to launch this more focused quarterly issue on interior design. I was asked to blend fashion and interiors with longer-form storytelling. Perhaps there will be other editions elsewhere in the future but it’s certainly a statement that the first is in Paris.

There’s something quite special about the first cover. How would you describe it?
I decided to go for a fashion photographer instead of one who does interiors. You find so many design magazines with beautiful rooms on the cover but I wanted to see what I could do differently, so I tried to evoke an attitude. The cover stars – Charlotte de Tonnac and Hugo Sauzay from architecture studio Festen – were the perfect duo. From their outfits to their poses, they are quintessentially Parisian.

Magazines need an identity. What are you trying to convey with ‘Harper’s Bazaar Intérieurs’?
It should be sexy and rocky. I don’t want a cover with a beautiful woman leaning on a fireplace in a haute-couture dress. It has to be cooler, more glamorous and more Parisian.

To listen to the full interview with Combréas, tune in to the latest edition of‘The Stack’.

We celebrate 20 years of music promoter, record label and events producer Nonclassical. Over the past two decades, the organisation has been at the forefront of classical, experimental and electronic music, leading the way with innovative and genre-defying sounds. Robert Bound sits down with composer and founder Gabriel Prokofiev and composer Tonia Ko.