Labor won in the West for all the worst reasons
Labor won in the West for all the worst reasons
Sometime towards the end of 2008, former Prime Minister John Howard came to Perth to give a speech on human…
No wonder ScoMo’s cautious
“We’ve been on narrow paths before, colleagues, and we’ve walked them together,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the joint Coalition…
Victorian Liberal MPs: you blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things
Earlier today, a motion to spill the Victorian opposition leadership of Michael O’Brien failed to get the numbers after challenger…
How singer Sam Smith cancelled himself
In a classic case of unintended consequences, non-binary singer Sam Smith will find himself neither here nor there when awards…
Cancel culture and the left’s long march
Last week Manchester University in Britain published a ‘Guide to Inclusive Language’ that proves, once again, how successful the cultural-left…
The war on ‘normal’
The long arm of cancel culture now threatens to reach over the shower screen to police any politically-incorrect thoughts we have as…
March of anger is a political power play, nothing more
Today, thousands of people took part in 40 planned rallies across Australia, supposedly to demand action on “violence against women”. But, here’s the…
Why did Cormann get the top job at the OECD? His track record shows he won’t upset woke globalists
Having gone to considerable lengths in lobbying for one of our very own, former finance minister Mathias Cormann, to become…
We shouldn’t forget the horrific crimes of Isis returnees
Summer 2015. A five-year-old girl is chained up and left outside in the desert sun in Fallujah, Iraq – a…
In defence of Charlie Hebdo's 'racist royals' cover
Amid the ongoing fallout from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s explosive Oprah interview, Charlie Hebdo seems to have done the…
Not all Americans are on Team Meghan
The press is awash with reports of the disgust and distaste of the American public towards the UK, in particular…
Is the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine safe? A doctor's view
One of the few positives to have come out of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the remarkable speed at which…
Throwing the Christian to the fembots
Following the unanimous exoneration of Cardinal George Pell by the High Court of Australia in April last year, there was…
Where populism ain’t so popular
It has been five years since populism returned to prominence in the politics of Western democracies, yet it seems Australia’s…
A torn and tattered patchwork quilt
In his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on 28 February, Donald Trump called for a series of…
Josh with the dosh
Did you see all the fawning praise that followed on from the news that Australia’s GDP grew by 3.1 per…
Albo’s hike along the Appalachian Trail
One of my favourite authors is Bill Bryson and one of my favourite books is A Walk in the Woods. …
Tribulations of a woke princess
After a bombshell interview with the Duchess and Duke of Sussex, watched by millions in America and throughout the Commonwealth,…
The measure of a man
As we watch so many cherished liberties being swept away on a tidal wave of identity politics and Covid lockdowns,…
Sacred sites – a warning to us all
They are at it again. Another group of First Nations people is trying to close a part of a national…
Britney Spears
The arts world in general —and with it theatre in particular— is opening up. Not only is the Botticelli to…
Johannes Fritzsch
It is hard to imagine a city with a richer cultural history than Dresden or a better place for a…
Christopher Plummer
A few weeks ago that great Canadian actor Christopher Plummer died. Everyone knows him as Captain Von Trapp opposite Julie…
Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London
Saint Zenobius was a Florentine nobleman who was converted to Christianity and baptised as an adult, ultimately becoming the first…
Cashing in on Covid: the traders who thrive on a crisis
When we think of those lurching moments last spring when it became clear that much of the world, not just…
Bright and beautiful: Double Blind, by Edward St Aubyn, reviewed
Edward St Aubyn’s ‘Patrick Melrose’ novels were loosely autobiographical renderings of the author’s harrowing, rarefied, drug-sozzled existence. Despite their subject…
Two for the road: We Are Not in the World, by Conor O’Callaghan, reviewed
A father and his estranged 20-year-old daughter set off across France, sharing the driver’s cabin of a long-haul truck. This…
One great Chinese puzzle remains its cuisine
A truth that ought to be universally acknowledged is that Chinese food, while much loved, is underappreciated. China certainly has…
Bird migration is no longer a mystery — but it will always seem a miracle
Bird migration was once one of those unassailable mysteries that had baffled humankind since Aristotle. A strange hypothesis, genuinely advanced…
The odd couple: John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald
On a shard of paper, some time in the bleak mid-1930s, F. Scott Fitzgerald incorporated a favourite line from one…
Women of the streets: Hot Stew, by Fiona Mozley, reviewed
For a novel set partly in a Soho brothel, Hot Stew is an oddly bloodless affair. Tawdry characters drift in…
Peru’s beauty has been a real curse
As the planet gets more and more ravaged, the mind can begin to glaze over at the cumulative general statistics…