Sorry states of play
Daniel Andrews: diminished, damned and disgraced
And so the 543-page final Report of the Coate Inquiry into Victoria’s deadly Covid-19 hotel quarantining has been tabled. …
Doug Anthony: the original All Star goes out
The death over the weekend of former Country/National Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Doug Anthony, breaks the last link but…
What won’t be in the Victorian hotel quarantine fiasco inquiry report today
Justice Coate’s much-awaited final report of her inquiry into Victoria’s Covid-19 hotel quarantine program is due for release today. If…
Unto them a child is born: the joylessness of secular faiths
While those committed to extreme forms of secularism argue religion, especially Christianity, must be abolished it’s ironic that at the same time they adopt many of the characteristics of the…
The Greens cult of no personality
Out today: yet another screed of delusion, distortion and deceit that the Greens pass off as their magazine. It’s only…
2020: The year in review with Alexandra Marshall
If we have learned anything from 2020, it’s ‘don’t eat bats’. From Ebola to Covid, these winged Petri dishes have proved…
Woke and broke: what’s honourable about Victoria?
Time and common sense have appropriately bourne witness to the disappearance of centuries-old parliamentary extravagances such as gowns, wigs, frilly…
Meet the skinless chickens (AKA our university vice-chancellors)
Australia came to a fork in the road. The private sector went one way. The public sector the other, singing…
Donald Trump has made showers great again
President Donald Trump is the best. I already thought he was great, but I became even more convinced of his…
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock suggests Tier 4 could stay until vaccine 'rolled out'
As 16.4 million people wake up to the first day of Tier 4 restrictions, many are asking for how long…
How sure can we be that Britain's Tier 4 lockdown will work?
How certain should we be of the government’s claim that the new variant of SARS-CoV-2 is 70 per cent more transmissible…
John le Carré’s London of exiles is alive and well
‘I’m an Englishman born and bred, almost.’ So says Karim Amir, protagonist of Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of…
Star power
The last time Jupiter and Saturn aligned this closely, Genghis Khan was implementing his Great Reset across much of Eurasia.…
Sorry states of play
For most Australians, I suspect, one of the big discoveries of 2020 would have been the extent to which our…
History written in stone
Rare permanent springs in the barren arid outback were sites of gushing spa waters in former tropical times. These springs…
Balmain calling
Earlier this year, I was in London in the (very) early stages of pre-production of a brilliant script by David…
Van & the pandemic
Last year I spent a long and convivial morning in Belfast in the company of Van Morrison. True, Morrison was…
Ludwig van & the pandemic
The past year was marked by pandemic-induced losses. Apart from illness, death and economic devastation, we sustained a serious cultural…
Cherry-picking the hockey stick
Whatever else the hysteria over Wuhan flu did to the world, it obliterated the alarmist global warming fearmongering for a…
Fighting back with conservative appointments
Why is it that left-wing political parties are so good at ruthlessly appointing like-minded fellow travellers to all the key…
Orson Welles
It seems on the face of it the oddest proposition on earth. David Fincher, the famous Hollywood director of Fight…
The Australian Ballet
It is indeed a new era. The Australian Ballet announced its 2021 season under the new artistic direction of David…
Ned Kelly
All the young millennials I know were raging in Melbourne the other Saturday night and so were some of their…
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
Time to look to the future; performing arts companies are encouraging us to do so through their subscription seasons now…
George Pell: Behind Bars
This is the prison diary that should never have been written because Cardinal George Pell should never have been in…
Summer books
A decade from now, we might look back at 2020 and laugh. Then again, maybe not. It has been a…
A conciliatory P.J. O’Rourke is not the satirist we know and love
There was an acidic bravura and beauty in P.J. O’Rourke’s early journalism and a gleefulness in the ease with which…
Spot the literary character
For answers, visit spectator.com.au/2020/12/answers-to-spot-the-literary-character.
Will we soon see the end of conservatism as we know it?
For some years I chaired the international alliance of centre right and conservative parties, the International Democrat Union. It is…
The only man who didn’t want to be Cary Grant was Cary Grant himself
Cary Grant was a hoax so sublime his creator struggled to escape him. He was a metaphor, too, for the…
The End of Times and the coming of the Antichrist
Two things it may be wise to know before picking up this relatively short and surprisingly cheerful brand spanking NEW…
Mozart the infant prodigy was also a child of the Enlightenment
‘My dear young man: don’t take it too hard,’ Joseph II counsels a puppyish Mozart, the colour of his hair…