Laughing stock
How a sexy plane upset the left
Leftwing politics, globally, is full of sexy planes. If you want to see a parade of private jets, attend a…
Labor’s disgusting intergenerational tax reform
Young Australians have realised it ‘isn’t easy under Albanese’. Interest rates are climbing. Housing in capital cities is non-existent. Rents…
Booing, Welcome to Country, and the long activist game
Several things can be true at once. A majority of Australians, as suggested by the Voice to Parliament referendum, disagree…
Come on, Avi – hurry up and Free Palestine!
I used to work with Avi Yemini, the Australian Bureau Chief for Rebel News. He won’t mind me writing this (I…
The other bracket creeps
Everyone knows about income tax bracket creep. Wages drift up with inflation, taxpayers slide into higher brackets, and the Commonwealth…
About to vomit out the Left
The left has once again proven what it always proves. Socialism doesn’t work. They’ve run out of other people’s money,…
What if Snowy 2.0 was never a good idea?
In 2017, I wrote an article printed in The Australian on the March 28, titled: Snowy Two: Turnbull’s pipe is…
The high (moral) crimes of left-wing ideology
It is easy to forget that what we think of as ‘constitutional democracy’ covers fewer than half of the world’s…
Whitewashing fundamentalist Islam?
Given Iran is a despotic Islamic theocracy dedicated to destroying Israel and perpetrating a Jihad against the West, and given…
How welcoming are the Welcomes?
The discourse around Anzac Day this year was dominated by the reaction to ‘Welcome to Country’ ceremonies. These ceremonies now…
The battle for Farrer … and conservatism
While I am a Queensland Senator, the political battle taking place in Farrer is fascinating. Usually, a by-election triggered by…
The other strait we should be worrying about
The world is fixated on the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, but it should be watching the waters off…
Let us forget Welcome to Country on Anzac Day
I had a great-uncle, the brother of my maternal grandfather, who died at Gallipoli. My father was in the RAAF…
The great gas give-away
It is a persistent and lazy myth that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is a party of protest without policy. For…
Reclaiming the Port of Darwin must be on the national agenda
Australia faces its most uncertain strategic environment since the end of the second world war. In such times, governments must…
Gina Rinehart: Lest We Forget
The following is a transcript from Gina Rinehart’s Anzac Day Sunset Tribute at the Sydney Opera House. Today, we especially…
Trust the markets
There is a seductive new idea doing the rounds on the political right. And like most seductive ideas, it should…
A continent-sized nation, living in a corner of itself
Australia is one of the largest countries on earth, yet most of its population and economic activity are concentrated in…
Perpetual indignation is not a Constitutional principle
Many harsh things have been said about our beautiful country. Yet the Australian Parliament now also wants to ‘…foster informed,…
We are sleeping through history
All Speccie readers know there is a particular kind of intellectual courage that costs nothing. It loves prudence, develops complexity…
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner loses again – A victory for free speech | Celine Baumgarten S3 Ep 18
Celine Baumgarten (Celine Against the Machine) has celebrated her SECOND victory against the eSafety Commissioner. This wasn’t only a personal…
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? | Joel Gilbert S3 Ep 17
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? I’m joined by Joel Gilbert to discuss the genius of humour…
Digital tyranny or ‘child safety’? 😵 & the bitcoin revolution | Efrat Fenigson S3 Ep 16
When Australia’s Under 16 social media ban started locking adult political writers out of #Substack – it was just the…
Encouraging assassinations
Well, the good news is that there is now an opening for a substitute teacher in Torrance, California. Cole Allen,…
Taylor tinkers with tough talk on immigration
In Angus Taylor’s recent keynote speech on immigration, he repeatedly cited the experience of the UK and Europe as an…
If it’s bad here, it’s worse in the mother country
Just as I was ready to move on from the creeping civilianisation of military justice, the news out of the…
World sags under record debt
Howard Marks, the co-founder of US-based Oaktree Capital Management, became a billionaire by investing in distressed debt. When giving talks,…
Zero debt
It was an event that was largely ignored by the mainstream media. On 21 April, it was the two-decade anniversary…
Australia is trying to drink its way to fiscal sobriety
Australia is in the longest run of falling per capita output since the Australian Bureau of Statistics began publishing the…
How feminism demoralises young women
In 1983, Yuri Bezmenov, a former KGB agent and defector, delivered a chilling lecture on ideological subversion. Speaking at UCLA,…
Once a jolly jihadist
This week, we learned that the government has spent $318 million investigating war crimes allegedly committed by the approximately 230…
Does Scotland really have too few migrants?
Mairi McAllan, the SNP government’s Housing Minister, Nicola Sturgeon protege, and leader in waiting (according to the gossip), has been lambasted…
Why Trump will resume bombing Iran
The missiles and bombs may have stopped, at least for the moment, but the war between the United States and…
The Fight for the Right: Conservatives vs Reform
On 7 May there will be no competition. Reform is predicted to pull off sweeping victories in councils across the…
Watch: Labour MP told to resign by Jewish constituents
It has been a pretty grim day in Golders Green. Two Jewish men have been stabbed, with the Metropolitan Police formally…
Why America’s democracy needs the British monarchy
Perfect spring sunshine beamed down on King Charles III and Queen Camilla as they slowly made their way down the…
The Golders Green atrocity is the final straw
It is undeniable now: war has been declared on British Jews. A fascistic crusade is being waged against our Jewish…
Starmer thinks the public is too stupid to notice his incompetence
There was a veritable ‘last day of school’ vibe in parliament as it was prorogued in anticipation of the King’s…
Why won’t Starmer take the safety of Britain’s Jews seriously?
Another day, another attack on Jews. Two men were stabbed in Golders Green: one in his 70s, one in his…
Gwyn Jenkins: ‘Russia remains the gravest threat to our security’
With Donald Trump’s noisy war on Iran about to enter its third month, it can be easy to forget that…
Which party leader is on the road the most?
As local elections loom ever closer, Britain’s intrepid party leaders have taken to the road to pitch themselves far and…
The Golders Green attack is an outrage
When I read the headline – ‘two people stabbed in Golders Green’ – my initial reaction was not one of shock. It was the…
Malcolm Offord and the heresy of achievement
A telling exchange from Tuesday night’s televised debate for the Scottish Parliament elections. Malcolm Offord, businessman and Tory peer turned…
The row over English becoming an official language of New Zealand
Parliamentarians in New Zealand have been limbering up for an oddly unedifying debate over what ought to be the most…
What they don’t tell you about Christmas in New Zealand
‘I still think New Zealand the most beautiful country I have ever seen,’ Agatha Christie marvelled in 1922. Evidently she’s…
What will Jacinda Ardern do next?
When I first met Jacinda Ardern in the early 2010s, the notion that the young MP with the toothy smile…
The de-Wokification of New Zealand’s education system
The conservative coalition government of New Zealand came to office promising to wind back an enormous, government-run system of ‘Woke’…
Organised crime is targeting artisanal food
Skill of the characterisation
Yasmina Reza is one of the most dazzling playwrights alive because she creates sweepingly funny bits of theatre (masterfully translated…
Scrupulous fidelity
Isn’t it fascinating how much we adapt works of literature? 150 years ago someone would have had a fair chance…
Like him or loathe him
It’s cheering to hear very promising reports of Barrie Kosky’s production of Siegfried at Covent Garden suggesting that the Melbourne-born…
Cruelties of popular culture
Ethan Hawke is an extraordinary figure. He has made straightforward Hollywood classics like Training Day but he also comes out…
Were Britain’s postwar dons just having too much fun?
A history of academic life stands and falls by the number and quality of its anecdotes. On this count, Colin…
How Syria’s dream of freedom ended in further repression
Anand Gopal has form when it comes to war. In Afghanistan, distrustful of President Bush’s ‘good vs evil’ and ‘you’re…
The doyen of the France’s culinary scene is unmasked
For some reason it took nearly a decade for the news of a revolution in the restaurants of France to…
A foolproof way of predicting the future
A peek at the horoscope, puzzling the meaning of dreams, wearing lucky socks, having a method for choosing lottery numbers…
In praise of uncertainty over hollow conviction
When I met Brian Dillon in February 2023, he seemed to have a lot on his mind. We had arranged…
The land of missed opportunity: The Left and the Lucky, by Willy Vlautin, reviewed
Were arriving aliens to be introduced to the concept of the USA via the work of Willy Vlautin, they would…
The art of printmaking in all its glorious complexity
Do you know your aquatint from your drypoint? Your intaglio from your lithograph? The appearance of any one finished print…
A meditation on reality: Transcription, by Ben Lerner, reviewed
Near the beginning of Ben Lerner’s new novel the unnamed narrator recalls visiting an exhibition of botanical models made by…