Of course, National Conservatives are conservative
Vincent Tarzia: taken down by the SA Voice saga?
Whoops! There goes another one… South Australia’s state Liberal leader has stepped down after the rumblings of irreconcilable division set…
eSafety Commissioner sets her gaze on electric vehicles
Just when you thought range anxiety, sabotaged charging stations, and distance-based road taxes were all you had to worry about…
Politicians want social media to shut up
‘When vigorous prose could sweep away the intellectual wreckage of antiquity and simple experiments could reveal beautiful new truths about…
G20 leaders ‘defy Trump’ gloating that net zero will cost trillions
There is something remarkably juvenile about prime ministers, presidents, and media establishments gloating that the G20 Leaders’ Summit has ‘defied…
Lessons from Nuremberg for today’s protests
The Holocaust trials reveal how ordinary people can be reshaped by ideology – in Australia, Melbourne’s anti-Israel marches offer a…
Comms Minister Anika Wells rejects the premise of liberal democracy
From Hamburg: I’m away from the National Press Club for two seconds and I miss out? It’s not quite a…
General anarchy and plunder…
Our remarkably high living standards from the 1840s onwards came from ordinary people struggling for property rights. They won them,…
How to lose friends and control people
Just over a year ago, Australians were given 24 hours’ notice to make a submission to the proposed legislation: Online…
The silent majority will save us
The righteous were remembered because they were few. The rest were silent. Now history is doing what history does, it’s…
Of course, National Conservatives are conservative
The Australian centre-right does not really understand the pro-worker national conservatism which has been so electorally successful in the United…
Only a United Nations drip could make the Victorian Treaty a joke
It is frightening how little is taught in schools about the United Nations. Australians have virtually no idea what role…
Stories of origin: conservatives forgot the power of narrative
Despite the delusional beliefs of the post-modernist left, their clearly counterproductive actions, outright deception – both of themselves and the…
How the Left turned the Catholic Church against the Jews
Catholics, along with other Christians, will soon celebrate the birth of history’s most famous Jew, Jesus of Nazareth. It is…
The tide of climate alarmism is receding
The key issue for economic policy remains the ‘transition’ away from dependable energy sources (coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro) towards…
ACT government flirts hard with socialism
From Hamburg: You can forgive foreign countries for their domestic political quirks because it’s really none of your business, but…
Sean Bell: we are not here to apologise for Australia, we are here to defend it
The following is an excerpt from Senator Sean Bell’s maiden speech. I entered the Senate by way of a casual…
Being paid to bludge
Did you follow that story about the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Human Resources) of the newly created Adelaide University (a combination of…
National conservatism isn’t conservative
There is a growing fascination within a segment of the Australian right for the American movement now calling itself ‘post-liberal’…
The Juukan myth
My wife and I enjoy watching Seven’s The Chase quiz show. I don’t know why, because many of the questions…
The outgoing tide of freedom
John Mortimer’s memorable creation, Rumpole of the Bailey, loved to quote the great lines of English poetry. One of Rumpole’s…
The rooster, the sun & Donald J. Trump
You may remember Dan Quayle’s immortal contribution to political philosophy: ‘I have made good judgements in the past. I have…
Peak China
The US government in recent years imposed global rules that prevent any company anywhere from selling advanced computer chips or…
It’s our party and we’ll splurge if we want to
It wasn’t easy being Green this year. The protest party par excellence protested too much and was cut down to…
Surge of The Purge
A notable characteristic of the contemporary left is that they engage in projection – everything they accuse their enemies of…
Tories to move headquarters
You’re either in front of Mr S or you are behind. It was just six weeks ago that Steerpike reported…
The Andrew debacle has blown open the royal coffers for all to see
If you’ve ever dramatically broken up with an ex, only to find, to your miserable disbelief, that they keep popping…
The joy of receiving Christmas cards – even from people I loathe
These days I barely know what my own handwriting looks like; about my friends, the knowledge is all but lost.…
HMS Prince of Wales is not yet the finished product
Huge crowds of locals, plus families and friends of the crew, greeted the return home of the nation’s flagship aircraft…
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’…
Jacinda, Jacinta
I’m not a big fan of self-serving autobiographies, particularly of recently departed political leaders. I had briefly considered dipping into…
Why the Maori party keep doing the haka in parliament
Parliamentary proceedings in New Zealand once again screeched to a halt this week after an unsanctioned performance of the haka…
The end of the climate cult
The sheer scope of his work
When Tom Stoppard, playwright extraordinaire, was at the early height of his fame, with Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons in…
Confused and cumbersome
Anne-Louise Sarks’ production of that dazzling dramatic opera Carmen at Melbourne’s Regent was sometimes lit like a Christmas tree, sometimes…
Pit full of snakes
What a cheering thing it is that David Szalay has won the Booker Prize for Flesh which is a masterpiece…
Give Stellan Skarsgård an Oscar for Sentimental Value
Recently, a friend of mine found himself having a bad day for a reason I now forget. I made a…
The young Anton Chekhov searches for his voice
This book collects 58 pieces of fiction that Anton Chekhov published between the ages of 20 and 22. Many appear…
Nostalgia for the 1980s New Romantic scene
It is hard to write the history of a subculture without upsetting people. Events were either significant or inconsequential depending…
Revenge of the invisible woman: Other People’s Fun, by Harriet Lane, reviewed
Do you have one of those friends who is uncannily conscious of the most subtle signs of insincerity; who quietly…
The last straw in Lloyd George’s cash for honours scandal
Why another book about Maundy Gregory? The spiv who in the 1920s acted as middleman between David Lloyd George and…
The nearest we’ll ever get to experiencing the horrors of 1914
In a German war cemetery to the north-east of the Belgian town of Diksmuide is the grave of a young…
Homage to the herring as king of the fishes
In 1755, Samuel Johnson (this was before his honorary doctorates) defined the herring as ‘a small sea-fish’, and that was…
Pride and Prejudice retold in a thousand different ways
‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that any essay about Jane Austen… must be in want of a poorly rendered…
What not to say when visiting Santa’s grotto, and other tips from Ben Schott
Where might you observe both form policing and labour pains? What’s the difference at a casino between a flea, a…