Our politicians have created a cringing Covid mentality
Freedom is the best reason to get vaccinted
There is a saying that goes like this: you can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust…
I’m guilty of going against The Science: a defence of my condemned, censored ‘dangerous’ speech to parliament
Politicians condemned me. Big Tech censored me. The mainstream media said my views were a danger to public health. Why?…
Afghanistan, women and safety
We have all seen the pictures of another Afghanistan, of beautiful women in short skirts carrying books at Kabul University.…
Our politicians have created a cringing Covid mentality
“The EPL is back” shouted commentator after commentator this weekend as cameras panned across sold-out, maskless crowds across English stadiums.…
Afghanistan’s fall — and our disgrace
If you go into someone else’s house and trash it, you have a moral as well as a legal obligation…
Jacinda Ardern asks the Taliban to be ‘nice’ to women
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has come out and asked the Taliban to be ‘nice’ to women during this…
Qantas move makes mandatory job jabs clarity yet more urgent
Today, Qantas has become our largest corporate so far to announce it will make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory for all staff.…
Kabul: some good must come of this
I’ve had a few thoughts on Afghanistan, which is a disaster I was against in the first instance, but once…
Afghanistan: The error of withdrawal
Like many veterans, this last week has been one that has seen me struggle through anger, grief and rage. The…
Harry and Meghan’s glib Afghan statement
Finally, some news to cheer us all up on this grim, relentless August. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have…
The blind spot in the SNP's 'war on drink'
Scotland’s grim reputation for abnormally high drug fatalities has become embedded in the public consciousness over the past year. The…
How did US intelligence get Afghanistan so wrong?
It may well go down as the understatement of the year. In a quite extraordinary address to the nation after…
Jacinda Ardern asks the Taliban to be ‘nice’ to women
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has come out and asked the Taliban to be ‘nice’ to women during this…
Kiwi notes
Freedom after speech? I recall a very fine lawyer, New Zealand’s most highly regarded QC, once saying that no law…
New Zealand’s energy emergency
Regardless of the spin Jacinda Ardern’s government is putting on the fact that parts of our North Island cities have…
You go, girl! Laurel Hubbard and the other trans Olympians
You’ve got to give it to Shania Twain. When she belted out her 1997 hit, Man! I feel like a woman! she…
Covid in the age of unreason
Some governments and parliaments seem to suffer from the fatal conceit that they can create new reality simply by declaring…
Covid statistics tell a different story
It is with head-shaking disbelief that New South Welshmen (in particular at the present) awake each new day to find…
Business/Robbery, etc.
The Financial Review headline restored reality to a week of ‘red alert’ IPCC report-induced catastrophic climate hyperbole: ‘Europe May Clean…
Mummy Juanita, your sacrifice is needed
I read lots of random stuff, no doubt like many Speccie readers. I recently learnt about a mummified body of…
Moral busybodies, monstrous certainty
It was C.S. Lewis who observed that there is no tyranny more oppressive or insulting than that of ‘omnipotent moral…
China must cough up for Covid
On and on and on it goes, 17 months now and no end in sight. As the losses mount up…
Big sister
Australians would once proudly boast theirs was a nation under the rule of law. Sadly, we now live under the…
The donkey that went to Mecca
In Afghanistan it is said if a donkey goes to Mecca, when it returns, it is still a donkey. Despite…
Ernest Hemingway
Entertainment in a public place shrivels as the lockdowns continue. The Australian Ballet has cancelled its Melbourne season, Anna Karenina…
Aden Young
No one has any guarantee of seeing Sigrid Thornton in Lifespan of a Fact with the Sydney Theatre Company now…
Rose Byrne
‘Unemployed at last!’ That wonderful bit of national self-mockery that opens the classic Australian novel Such is Life takes on…
John Mortimer & Leo McKern
What earthly guarantee do we have that live performance is going to be a viable option for Sydney or Melbourne…
Interpreting for a dictator: Intimacies, by Katie Kitamura, reviewed
If this is a cautious and circumspect novel, it’s because it involves a cautious and circumspect job: that of interpreter.…
Should the Duke of Windsor have been tried for treason?
In Traitor King, Andrew Lownie shows how the Duke of Windsor — the former Edward VIII, who abdicated in 1936…
Bad sports, from the ancient Greeks to the present
Sports history, writes Wray Vamplew, is sometimes ‘sentimental, reactionary and built on the implicit assumption that the sporting past was…
Why did the Allies dismiss the idea of a German resistance movement?
In 1928, a modest young lecturer from Wilwaukee, Mildred Harnack, née Fish, arrived in Berlin to begin her PhD in…
Fascist, anti-Semite and dupe: the dark side of G.K. Chesterton
The Sins of G.K. Chesterton demands our attention because, as Richard Ingrams notes in his introduction, the literature on this…
Are the English exceptionally gullible?
The word ‘hoax’ did not catch on till the early 19th century. Before that one spoke of a hum, a…
The history of transplants had many false starts
On watching transplant surgery, I can give prosaic but essential advice: have a good breakfast. Each operation can last 12…
Margaret Thatcher vs everyone else: the making of the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement
Diplomatic negotiations are rarely fully described by their participants in books, for two reasons. They are usually secret until much…
