flat white

A billion dollar barrier against the UN

At a time when Australian businesses and families are Covid-broke, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has casually dropped a billion dollars…

30 Jan 2022

My questions for the Royal Commission into Covid...

Senator Pauline Hanson has been pushing for a Royal Commission into the government’s handling of Covid, and demand for one…

29 Jan 2022

Women’s fashion – I mean – football…?

Every sensitive new age man knows that when working with women you may comment on their professional performance, but never…

29 Jan 2022

Campbell Newman is asking tougher questions than the corporate media

The last two years have seen unprecedented use of the word ‘unprecedented’ by Australian journalists. Conflating the limits of their…

29 Jan 2022

Victoria's pandemic of political failure

The government’s handling of the Covid pandemic in Victoria has been deplorable. But while the temptation is to blame Daniel…

28 Jan 2022

Feminism’s embarrassing fall from ‘Grace’

If the past couple of years has taught us anything, it is that the current wave of feminism has become…

28 Jan 2022

Summer's worst political commentators...

So how is your summer going? Trousers off, melting ice cream on the car seat, screaming children in the back,…

28 Jan 2022

Serbia’s revenge: Rio Tinto pays for Morrison’s hubris

There may be no ‘official’ connection, but it’s impossible not to side-eye the sudden decision by the Serbian government to…

28 Jan 2022

Sign up to the Morning Double Shot newsletter

The Spectator Australia's Morning Double Shot delivers a hearty breakfast of news and views straight to your inbox

Sign up to the Unfiltered evening newsletter

Stimulate your evenings with our unfiltered blend of the latest from Australia, the UK and the World.

Why Neil Young’s Spotify boycott is a mistake

When Neil Young issued his threat to Spotify – get rid of Joe Rogan’s podcast or remove my music from…

29 Jan 2022

5,000 helmets and Germany’s dark history in Ukraine

If anyone produces a ‘history in 100 objects’ for the first half of the 21st century, one of those objects…

29 Jan 2022

Eric Zemmour isn’t to blame for France’s anti-Semitism crisis

Emmanuel Macron sees anti-Semitism everywhere except where it really lurks. Earlier this month his government accused protesters opposed to the…

29 Jan 2022

Could this kitty swing the midterms for the Demo-cats?

President Biden must not be feline optimistic about his paltry poll numbers, particularly after his landmark Build Back Better Act…

29 Jan 2022

Sign up to the Flat White newsletter

Weekly round up of the best Flat White blogs - delivered straight to your inbox

Sign up to the Best of the World newsletter

Get the latest developments around the world - delivered straight to your inbox

In Fortress New Zealand, faith in Saint Jacinda is starting to fade

  Wellington   Jacinda Ardern recently told an American television host that she finds it ‘slightly offensive’ when outsiders assume…

29 Jan 2022

Dear New Zealand, it’s time to end Covid discrimination

Dear New Zealand, It’s a shame that we as a country have decided to follow a policy of discrimination. Supporting…

3 Jan 2022

Heading towards dystopia – what happened to New Zealand?

In the clash between authoritarianism and democracy, we know what is winning hands down. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, far-left on…

16 Dec 2021

Let’s not copy New Zealand’s mistake with ciggies

New Zealand this week banned smoking for the next generation. Those under 14 will never be allowed to legally smoke…

14 Dec 2021

Sign up to The Spectator Australia newsletter

Australia's best political analysis - straight to your inbox

Uncivil war

Thanks to the Biden Administration’s unofficial open-borders policy, some two million unauthorised migrants crossed into the United States last year,…

29 Jan 2022

Chinese whispers

This week, WeChat, the most popular messaging app, and social media platform in China removed the account of the Australian…

29 Jan 2022

Farewell to wokedemia

Jordan Peterson, who needs no introductions, last week resigned from his fully tenured professorship at Canada’s leading university, the University…

29 Jan 2022

Come back, Bill

I miss Bill Shorten. There – I’ve said it. It’s not because of the absence of those daggy shots of…

29 Jan 2022

Switch off the fear porn

A vigorous and investigative media is critical to the wellbeing of any free, liberal democracy like Australia. For a democracy…

29 Jan 2022

Aloha carbon emissions

We have been warned repeatedly that rising sea levels will wipe small Pacific Island nations from the map of the…

29 Jan 2022

China’s Pacific projection

Geoffrey Blainey’s famous reference to ‘the tyranny of distance’ — the title of his 1966 history — may resonate less…

29 Jan 2022

Darwin under attack

The 80th anniversary of the first air raid on Australia occurs this year on 19 February. The numbers associated with…

29 Jan 2022

Don’t Look Up

How strange it is to be in a supposedly opened-up world, even as the Omicron variety of the virus shuts…

29 Jan 2022

Jeremy Irons in House of Gucci

Any attempt to fictionalise the Gucci story runs into the same difficulties as Ridley Scott’s handsome and absorbing film, House…

22 Jan 2022

West Side Story

How strange to revisit the Nova in Lygon Street, Carlton, where a lifetime of films have been experienced, after an…

15 Jan 2022

The Cardinal’s books

There are a thousand overtly artistic things to talk about at this summer moment including the new Sidney Nolan exhibition…

8 Jan 2022

Aussie Life

Even in Australian publications of a conspicuously conservative disposition, it has been some time since any respected pundit has suggested,…

29 Jan 2022

Aussie Language

Here’s a delightful expression I have just encountered: ‘offence archaeology’. This is the practice of going through the social media…

29 Jan 2022

It’s my ninth – and final – chemotherapy session

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I said to the big unit stationed behind her computer. She’s the chief, this one. She shows…

29 Jan 2022

My Orwellian battle with Vodafone

After launching an investigation into my missing phone, Vodafone informed me it could not deal with me any further until…

29 Jan 2022

French Kiss-Off

For decades the purpose of British settlement in New South Wales seemed too obvious to question. The American War of…

29 Jan 2022

Pre-crime has arrived in China

The idea of ‘pre-crime’ was popularised by Philip K. Dick’s story ‘The Minority Report’ and the 2002 Steven Spielberg film…

29 Jan 2022

Scaling the heights: a woman’s experience of mountain climbing

In her memoir Time on Rock, Anna Fleming charts her progress from ‘terrified novice’ to ‘competent leader’ as she scales…

29 Jan 2022

Smugglers’ gold: Winchelsea, by Alex Preston, reviewed

The atmospheric medieval town of Rye on the south coast still celebrates being a former haunt of smugglers, and on…

29 Jan 2022

A guide to the apothecary’s garden

On 23 May 1804, two months before his daughter’s wedding, John Coakley Lettsom threw open his estate in Camberwell. Some…

29 Jan 2022

The BBC is trapped in its own smug bubble

An incalculable number of trees have been hewn down recently in order to provide paper for people writing lengthy, largely…

29 Jan 2022

Adapt or die: what the natural world can teach us about climate change

Climate change may be the central challenge of our century, but almost all attention has focused on its consequences for…

29 Jan 2022

What did the Russians make of Francis Bacon?

The KGB might not have known much about modern art, but they knew what they liked. For instance, at what…

29 Jan 2022