Dolly, Kylie & Albo
Do politicians have the right to block citizens on social media?
Politicians, or perhaps their shallow-minded media managers, have been going crazy with the ‘block’ button. If you call the Treasurer…
I can’t believe they haven’t banned Community Notes
The fragile feelings and unconvincing campaign promises of politicians are under threat from … X’s Community Notes. We know because…
The Netflixification of the Royals
Royal Watchers will be aware of the unexpected news that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are evacuating California after a…
The shadow war on undersea cables
Undersea cables are like veins… People don’t pay them much mind until one gets nicked and there’s blood all over…
Data centre derangement syndrome
Data centres are more unpopular than potholes, and the industry seems unable to shift public perceptions with facts and figures.…
The trouble with Utopia … is us
The Left has been fighting human nature for more than 200 years. Human nature keeps winning. You would think by…
Two dead families’ worth of grief, and one theory
Two courtrooms, an ocean apart in relevance but identical in structure. In Massachusetts, Lindsay Clancy’s lawyers have rested their case,…
Before the shouting starts
Every sitting day in the Western Australian Legislative Council begins with the same small act. Before the debates, the interjections,…
Albanese thinks his government is anger-proof
There is something strange going on in Australian politics. Usually, the last thing a sitting government wants is an angry…
People and politics now polls apart
Everyone is trying to explain the polls. Pollsters have charts, commentators have theories, and party strategists have PowerPoint presentations, which…
The Lord’s Prayer is inclusive. Acknowledgement of Country is not…
If the Lord’s Prayer is removed from each day of Parliament, it doesn’t mean there is no prayer at the…
Angus Taylor: ‘The Labor government is f**kin’ sh*t…’
Am I the only one who thinks the optics of the Pollie Pedal event, despite being for a good cause,…
Prime Minister, why should data centres underwrite wind if it is so cheap?
Reading in The Australian Financial Review that data centres will have to get 40 per cent of their power from…
Wobbly Dr Who scenery
Effective leaders are reassuring figures who do not leave you counting your fingers after you shake their hand. Explanations of…
The undefended flank
In January this year, the British government quietly posted a fourteen-page document on a departmental website. There was no press…
Where there is no vision, the people will perish
My birthday this year, April 17 as usual, was met with the announcement of a new coastal ship. Never mind…
A pity both sides can’t lose
When asked his thoughts on the Iran and Iraq war, Henry Kissinger is reported to have said: ‘It’s a pity…
Labor refuses to consult Jewish community on divisive bill
As reported by this masthead last week, the Carroll Government has introduced the Associations Incorporation Reform Amendment Bill 2026 to…
Give us back our beer, smokes, and super
As much as I would like to smoke one of my tobacco pipes from my collection, the last time I…
Fixing Australia’s inflation problem
Inflation is overwhelmingly the greatest current economic concern of most Australians, according to a recent community survey by the Reserve…
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…
Dolly, Kylie & Albo
Just when you thought it was safe to view melons simply as grocery items, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese himself has,…
Brown study
In the last week, Melongate has proceeded along its sordid way. But it has now taken on a new significance.…
One trillion and counting
Last week, the federal government’s debt dial clicked over one trillion dollars. It’s a figure we should have avoided. But…
The High Court’s Pauline problem
How exciting. Three weeks ago in these pages, I predicted that if Pauline Hanson sought special leave to appeal to…
The heretics strike back
Raising the profile of a not-for-profit organisation is no easy task. Add to that trying to bring in new members.…
Murdoch, the Australian and me
We all know the Australian, the national newspaper Rupert Murdoch created in 1964, as a publication that generally occupies the…
Britain’s feuding conservatives
Most Spectator Australia readers won’t have heard of Sir Simon Woolley, the Right Honourable the Lord Woolley of Woodford, a…
Safety catch
Antisemitism is an abomination, unacceptable in any civilised society. Yet, as we look at the current state of our streets…
TikToxic antisemitism
One of the most illuminating pieces of evidence given to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion came in…
The Productivity Commission has declared war on productivity
I served on the staff of Alf Rattigan’s Tariff Board, the Productivity Commission’s ancestor, in the years it began pulling…
Super spivs
Australia’s compulsory superannuation scheme, says Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg, is ‘a massive failure, probably the biggest failure of public policy…
Brown study
The Spectator Australia has just received a leak of the latest entry in the private diary of Anthony Albanese, Prime…
Why ‘I’m backing Britain’ would never happen today
The economic storm clouds continue to gather over Britain. A reckoning of some sort is on its way, possibly a…
Carney’s defiance of Trump could destroy the Canadian economy
Canada and the US were once great friends, allies and trading partners. They had disagreements on various domestic and international…
Why the world loved Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton was all-American. Born into the dirt-poor Tennessee hills of the Great Smokey Mountains, her upbringing reflected the indigent…
Burnham’s council housing pledge falls short
We are starting to see a pattern in the announcements that Andy Burnham has made over his first few weeks…
Middle East Eye seems to get stupider and stupider
Breaking news: Jason Arday was telling the truth. That, at least, is the verdict of Middle East Eye, a generously funded…
RIP Dolly Parton
‘And try to make the most of every moment / ’Cause if you never try, you never win.’ There are few more…
Is social media causing dangerous driving?
Earlier today we found out there has been another fatal traffic accident related to a police chase, following the death of five…
North Devon’s maternity desert shames Britain
In late July, heavily pregnant women across North Devon began messaging one another in a panic. The news was unthinkable:…
Does Poland have an image problem?
It’s irresistibly funny to appoint somebody to improve your national image and then see the appointment turn into a national…
Why is the Scottish government giving children free schoolbags?
It seems that good intentions do not just pave the road to hell, but the path to foolishness. The SNP…
Andy Burnham has discovered the cost of nationalisation
The buses would run on time. The trains would be cheaper. And perhaps most of all, the water companies would…
We are already at war with Iran
Of all the inane – not to say stupid – comments by Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister, his remark…
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…
Jason Arday’s tragic death is no reason to silence the press
This silly and drivelling piece of tosh
Every so often something comes along that is so bad it fills the soul with wonder and dismay. It seems…
This devastating portrait of Americana
It’s more than 75 years since Lee J. Cobb opened in Elia Kazan’s production of Death of a Salesman and…
An aggravated splendour
Rod Liddle, who died on 2 August, was a journalist of genius and you could only feel a bit wonder-struck…
An exercise in murder
A friend said recently that the only two people he knew who had read Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers…
The enigma of Juba II, ‘the most fortunate captive ever taken’
What a fantastic subject this would be for a film. Born a prince of Numidia, in northern Africa, the hero…
From housemaid to monster: The Mare, by Angharad Hampshire, reviewed
In 1957, Russell Ryan, an American is holidaying alone in Austria. There he meets a young woman called Hermine Braunsteiner.…
How have we allowed star ratings to take over our lives?
Sometimes I like to imagine who I’d be without the internet. A better person, for sure. A person who has…
‘I always had a good life’: the boast of the 1970s’ most notorious terrorist
If you remember the 1970s you might also remember Carlos the Jackal, an international terrorist notorious for taking the Opec…
Always second but actually invincible: Agrippa, by Robert Harris, reviewed
Any readers of Robert Harris’s new novel who aren’t ancient historians might be surprised to discover what an important figure…
Shots in the dark: Fatal Love, by Louisa Treger, reviewed
Ruth Ellis was, as everyone knows, the last woman in Britain to be hanged – her case a catalyst for…
‘A wonderful, wacky woman’: a tribute to Betty Freedman
David Hockney painted ‘Beverly Hills Housewife’ between l966 and 1967, during an exceptionally happy period of his life. He was…
Finally – an authoritative, stimulating history of the modern Middle East
Around 350 pages into Simon Sebag Montefiore’s exhilarating and accomplished history of the modern Middle East, we reach the present…