Sting has linked the rise of toxic masculinity to the collapse of Britain's industrial workforce, arguing that generations of men lost not only jobs but also identity, purpose and an outlet for physical labour. The singer's remarks arrive as his long-running musical 'The Last Ship' prepares for a major West End return this autumn.

Speaking ahead of the production's run at London's Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Sting reflected on the social fallout ofdeindustrialisation in the north-east of England, where he grew up around the shipyards of Wallsend. The musician points out what happens when communities built on skilled labour are dismantled without replacement.

'I work with my hands every day as a musician, and I'm lucky,'he told the Guardian.'It's a rare thing for modern men to actually use their hands and use their strengths to do anything. We've lost something there.'

He went further, suggesting modern society may still be dealing with the emotional and cultural aftershocks of that collapse.

'I don't have any answers, but maybe the toxicity in society at the moment is [a result of the fact] that we've lost that direction for our energy, that male strength. It's rare we have to use it.'

'The Last Ship' has always been deeply personal for Sting.First staged in Chicago in 2014before moving to Broadway, the musical centres on workers facing the closure of a shipyard modelled on Swan Hunter, the famous Tyneside yard that shaped the economy and identity of the region for decades.

Men in the story wrestle with redundancy, pride and the sudden disappearance of a trade that defined entire families. One line from the show cuts directly to the core of Sting's argument. 'For what are we men without a ship to complete?'

Britain's industrial decline has long been analysed in economic terms, but Sting argues the closure of shipyards, steelworks and coal mines stripped away forms of communal purpose that were never properly replaced.

'Britain's wealth was created in the coalfields and the steel towns and the mill towns and the shipyards,' he said. 'All of those skill sets were thrown on the scrapheap ... for Thatcher's dream of a service economy.'

Debates around masculinity, alienation and economic insecurity have become increasingly volatile in Britain and elsewhere, particularly among younger men navigating insecure work and fragmented communities.

Source: International Business Times UK