The lost decade they made for us
Lord of the sock puppets
Anthony Albanese has joined the Unplug24 campaign, announcing on X: The movement is in honour of Mac Holdsworth who, to…
Penny Wong vs Ralph Babet
United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet has a knack for getting under Labor’s skin and this week, he succeeded in…
The conservatives are coming
There have been some seriously deranged things written about CPAC by left-wing publications. Conservative leaders spoke on stage in front…
AI is a psychopath
Did anyone else catch that fleeting headline in the Daily Mail, claiming: Chinese AI tool told researchers how to make biological weapons…
We should be a nation of citizens, not residents
Recently, I participated in the Robert Menzies Institute’s 2026 Policy Dialogue in my dual capacity as its General Manager and…
Labor ignores the criminals and bans the tools
The alleged attack on Dr Helen Haines MP and the revelations of an alleged ‘dirt file’ on her held by…
Higher or lower migration: at what cost?
Young Australians are repeatedly told Australia needs high migration to help them pay for an ageing population in coming decades.…
Australia’s fair go was never exclusively libertarian
In 1907, Justice Henry Bourne Higgins was asked to decide what constituted a fair and reasonable wage for an Australian…
In defence of big words
In the course of my daily grind, I routinely review documents created by dozens of colleagues. Some are internal documents…
My quest to climb Ayers Rock
Growing up in Australia in the 1950s, I was inspired by the idea of climbing Ayers Rock, the largest sandstone…
Please explain the great Australian prolapse debate
There are moments in the life of a nation when a man must step forward and offer whatever expertise he…
Under socialism, tomorrow never comes
Change by stealth is an old socialist tactic, often accompanied by the promise that tomorrow will be better if people…
Temperature too high?
Anthony Albanese has discovered a favourite phrase: Australia needs to ‘turn down the temperature’. It sounds statesmanlike. Reassuring, even. There…
The warning of history from the Iranian nation to Europe
History has repeatedly shown that extremist ideologies, even when they appear to be in conflict with one another, may converge…
We must defend patriotism, or end up like France
The grubs of the left love to mock patriotism, which just means love of country, and nationalism, which they dismiss…
The cost of opportunity
Across Australia, families are making increasingly difficult financial decisions as the cost of everyday living continues to place pressure on…
It couldn’t happen here, until it does
France is like a bellwether for liberty. When it goes belly-up, the Anglo liberal democracies thank God for the Westminster…
The missing middle ground of Australian politics
Chris Uhlmann wrote a column in The Australian this week that ought to be required reading in every Year 7…
French flames have exposed the West’s darkest rot
France’s rioters have inadvertently performed one public service: they have illuminated the darkness Western institutions have spent decades refusing to…
How Suez crisis crashed the Hungarian Revolution
I was 11 and I’d never seen let alone eaten a banana. I remember my first one, sitting in a…
CHAMPAGNE SOCIALISM BURNS FRENCH CULTURE – and Australia’s descent into censorship | S3 Ep 24
In this episode: Far-left riots bring France to its knees while President Macron attends #CelineDion concert. Australia’s Royal Commission into…
THE GREEN GROCERS OF THE APOCALYPSE – communism is back in fashion | S3 Ep 23
In this episode: The ‘Green’ Grocers of the apocalypse bringing communism via your weekly shop. Victoria collapsing underfoot – but…
ALBO, THE COFFEE WHISPERER – Labor might be the worst economic managers of all time | S3 Ep 22
In this episode… Albo’s ‘not-so-cheap’ coffee. ☕️ Is Jim Chalmers a good Treasurer? Is the 5% house deposit scheme causing…
Left-wing violence
In a recent speech, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned about the deadly danger of left-wing activism, claiming that…
The left’s fraudulent language
Many years ago, I was on an appointments committee to select between two candidates for a lecturing position in the…
Voters should have the right to remain silent
A man picked up by police on suspicion of robbing a petrol station is entitled to say nothing. Not a…
Let the Brethren hand out
Australia is talking about religious freedom again. Allegra Spender wants to restrict the exemptions under which religious schools make decisions…
Praising and censuring
Let’s hand out some bouquets and brickbats this week. Start with the praise. Angus Taylor and the Libs have nailed…
One Nation must de-woke Victoria, because the Libs won’t
Labor in Victoria is rotten at two levels – economic and cultural. If the Liberal leader, Jess Wilson, and the…
Australian notes
I sometimes wonder if Greg Sheridan reads his own columns. In last Saturday’s Australian he has penned a jeremiad which…
The lost decade they made for us
Australia used to be good at getting richer. In the ten years to 2012, real national income per head grew…
Why is the Albanese government so vindictive?
Governments of the doctrinaire far left, such as the Albanese government, share certain defining instincts which are truly appalling. These…
Albanese fans the flames
Brendan Nugent describes himself on X as a ‘plant person’ who believes ‘The world should be run by dogs and…
Conservative leadership
Sorry, Josh, you had your go. And you blew it. Politics is both a brutal and an unforgiving game. As…
If socialists understood economics they wouldn’t be socialists
Nobel Prize-winning economist, Friederich Hayek, argued the price system and market competition are the only effective ways to organise a…
Bring on the SUV tax
As the Chancellor puts the final touches to his first Budget, the warnings about unfilled black holes seem only to…
Why has the town of Dudley given up on itself?
One of my fondest childhood memories is walking Dudley High Street with my mother, aunt and sister at dusk on…
Why do some Palestine supporters think they are above the rules?
Three incidents over the past fortnight have highlighted a disturbing trend in the UK: a tendency by some activists to…
Can Netanyahu win again?
Next Tuesday, Israel holds elections for the first time since the appalling attacks of October 7, 2023. After such a…
The stakes in the High North are getting higher
The UK Commando Force (UKCF) had a busy summer this year. The Force’s mission, led by the Royal Marines, is…
Is Jane Eyre colonialist?
This week marks 179 years since the first publication of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre in 1847, something which will be celebrated in…
Brace yourselves for Gulfgate…
Russiagate was, famously, something of a damp squib. Donald Trump was never a secret Kremlin asset. Moscow did not internet-brainwash…
When police officers become desensitised to death
Paul Hardcastle’s son, Paul Jr, was dead when three police officers arrived on the scene of his fatal crash in…
Class war in the civil service
‘The Civil Service must be a magnet for the best and brightest,’ writes cabinet secretary Antonia Romeo on the civil…
Is Oxfam discriminating against its white employees?
There is nothing more aggravating in the workplace than the suspicion that someone sitting at the next desk might be…
Why wasn’t Jonathan Powell vetted before starting his security role?
Jonathan Powell was not security vetted before being given his post as Britain’s national security adviser, The Spectator can report.…
The gross narcissism of teachers wearing Palestine badges
Leftie teachers are shocked that they might soon be prevented from wearing Palestine badges in the classroom. Spare a thought…
Why you shouldn’t shrug at New Zealand’s greyhound racing ban
Greyhound racing ended in New Zealand on August 1. Those who neither own a greyhound nor care for the sport…
A New Zealand republic in Jacinda Ardern’s lifetime?
New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, believes the nation will become a republic within her lifetime. We have heard…
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…
Revolting France: The riots are driving the country’s politics to its extremes
The beauty of the ruthless truth
There are times when the screen, big or small, looks like a gift of the gods. In the last week…
Conflicting colours and tones of tragedy
Any fan of Gerald Murnane would love to see him win the Nobel Prize for Literature. And if it’s never…
That sinister sense of comic patter
Harold Pinter is one of the great dramatists of the last hundred years, perhaps the only one who can hold…
From another world
It’s striking what we can experience if we look back at the images of the recent past, aided by YouTube.…
Instruments of war
Drum Major Henry Barnes Jackson was 40 years old, had served in the Great War in the British Army, and…
How Sweden has kept communism at bay
Stay-behind cells in the second world war and the Cold War are familiar to students of intelligence and military history.…
The end is nigh: Switzy, by Emma Cline, reviewed
Emma Cline’s first novel, The Girls (2016), sold more hardback copies than any other debut novel published in the UK…
Dark, dank and mysterious: the haunting strangeness of boglands
‘Bog’ is an unlovely word, and the expressions in the bog lexicon – ‘bogged down’, ‘bog standard’, ‘bog off’ –…
Alternative universes: Exit Party, by Emily St John Mandel, reviewed
The premise of this novel is weird and delightful. At a party in the year 2031, with the American civil…
‘There’s a 50-50 chance I’ll get bumped off’: an American scholar foresees his death
On a drizzly morning in January 1984, Malcolm Kerr, the president of the American University of Beirut (AUB), was walking…
The intellectual passions of J.R.R. Tolkien
It was December 1942 and J.R.R. Tolkien was having doubts about his new book, a sequel to The Hobbit published…
Homesick for Tennessee: The Newer World, by Sebastian Barry, reviewed
‘I am become a name,’ Alfred Tennyson has Ulysses declare in his 1833 poem, an epigraph that sets up Sebastian…