Gearing up for civil strife
German manufacturing is dying a green death
Volkswagen intends to close three factories in Germany. Their demise will see the execution of tens of thousands of highly-skilled…
Visa warfare, a tool for censorship?
Are visas being used as weapons in the culture wars? Granting or denying a visa tarnishes the reputation of political…
Labor backs away from the scary green monster
The LNP’s decision to preference Labor over the Greens seems to have manoeuvred them out of power. ‘If Labor and…
Crisafulli will be the next Queensland premier
‘Tonight, Queenslanders voted for change. Tonight, Queenslanders voted for David Crisafulli!’ Or so went the new Premier’s intro and standing…
The nuclear disconnect in Australia holds us back
As Australia’s nuclear debate heats up, the stark contrast between our approach and that of nations like Canada grows more…
Twenty truths from the Rogan-Vance interview which show the Old Left is the New Right
We are currently living in a time where the old-Left are now the centre-Right. That’s because more and more people…
Whistleblower police
The feminists have it all sewn up. All it took was very effective bullying of politicians to have draconian legislation…
Academic elites and the status quo
Western universities have often prided themselves on being places of open debate, where all viewpoints could be heard, criticised, and…
The path to falling university rankings is paved with bureaucratic intentions
The dramatic fall of Australia’s universities in the recent Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings (THE rankings) 2024 was entirely…
Values, ethics: what’s the difference?
In response to a decision by Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, not to endorse a Presidential candidate,…
Albo’s flight upgrade saga reflects self-entitlement culture
We are living in an age of self-entitlement. Former AFR columnist Joe Aston’s ‘story about power in the shadows’ has…
Once we were…
The Guinness Book of Records was a big thing in the 1970s. Every house had a copy. The book contained all…
Queensland: free of Labor, but not yet free
Allow me to offer my congratulations to the people of Queensland. We have freed ourselves from the inexcusable abuse perpetrated…
Will this election Make America Cheat Again?
‘Who could imagine that Kamala has any support … are Americans asleep?’ Or so read the text message from a…
Chalk and cheese
Driving a few days ago from Vancouver to Whidbey Island near Seattle with Canadian friends, they cautioned my wife and…
The Covid Inquiry
Much of the responsibility for the Covid controversy has remained buried, particularly the role of medical advice and its use…
A tale of two tactics
What’s the country most similar to Australia in terms of our constitutional history, size, people, legal system, punching weight in…
Our slowing and deformed economy
At a recent gathering of European leaders, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni noted that over the past 35 years, Europe’s…
A recce of the Hallowe’en decs
One of my favourite pastimes is to roam around the neighbourhood with the grandchildren, taking in the sights and looking…
Hayek’s fine mind
Recently, the names of the three Nobel prize winners in economics were announced. Fifty years ago, one of the best…
All is not well
The recent incident involving the respected trade unionist, Joe de Bruyn, is the latest manifestation of the battle raging for…
Our China-loving pope
Readers will recall the late Cardinal George Pell’s scathing Spectator Australia article, published a day after his passing, which spoke…
Gearing up for civil strife
A New South Wales Electoral Commission inquiry last year rejected electronic voting as inherently risky and urged paper-based voting be…
Chairman’s scrounge
‘Mum’s aspiration was that my life would turn out better than hers. It was because of her that a working…
Team Badenoch vs Team Jenrick: A beginner’s guide
The end is in sight. The polls have closed. On Saturday, the result of the Tory leadership contest will be…
There may soon be peace in Lebanon
If the leaks and briefings are to be believed, Israel is getting ready to end its war in Lebanon. With…
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke has the perfect riposte to the anti-Israel bores
Finally, a celeb has stood up to the Israel bashers. It took the famously dour frontman of Radiohead to do…
The Women’s Equality Party deserves its fate
Of all the grotesque modern types who cast a silly-yet-sinister shadow over the dog-days of Western civilisation – the Queers…
Why is this New Zealand airport clamping down on hugs?
‘Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world,’ Hugh Grant famously offered in the heartwarming opening scene of Love,…
How New Zealand managed to sink a tenth of its naval fleet
New Zealand just lost one tenth of its naval defence fleet. The HMNZS Manawanui – the jewel in the nation’s small military…
How does New Zealand solve a problem like China?
New Zealand’s most important trading partner is also the nation’s biggest security headache, according to a new risk-assessment report produced…
Why are so many young people abandoning New Zealand?
Heading to the UK is a longstanding rite of cultural passage for many Kiwis. People like my youngest son, who…
The OnlyFans model, the milkshake and me
The all-powerful hand of the director
When that writer of spare French prose André Gide was asked who the greatest French poet was he replied, ‘Hugo,…
What Fight Club got right
There are three great makers of popular man-art working in Hollywood today – Michael Mann, Christopher Nolan and David Fincher…
Such wild and tumultuous art
Jonathan Mills’ opera Eucalyptus based on the superbly designed novel by Murray Bail has left audiences dazzled and rushing to…
Paddington shouldn’t have been given a passport
Paddington has an official passport. The makers of the new Paddington film Paddington in Peru revealed this in passing to the Radio Times today.…
Aussie life
Despite historically owning less property than men, women have always exerted a powerful influence in the sector. Like lyre birds,…
Language
When human rights commissions were established both federally and in all the states, we assumed this was a good thing…
The glaring mismatch in English football
Your starter for ten: who was the last English manager to win the top flight of English football? Treat yourself…
Does ‘tummy’ turn your stomach?
‘How old does he think you are?’ asked my husband when I told him my GP had asked me if…
Books of the Year I
Jonathan Sumption Barbara Emerson’s The First Cold War: Anglo-Russian Relations in the 19th Century (Hurst, £35) is an outstanding account…
From public bar to cocktail bar: books for the discerning drinker
One of the joys of getting older is the appreciation of the solitary pint. But what to do as you…
Waifs and strays: Gliff, by Ali Smith, reviewed
‘Gliff’ is a word which can mean ‘a short moment’, ‘a wallop’, and ‘a post-ejaculatory sex act’; to ‘dispel snow’,…
The mystery of Area X: Absolution, by Jeff VanderMeer, reviewed
I have to confess that I am not a fan of horror fiction. I have a stack of unread H.P. Lovecrafts sent…
Truly inspirational: the hospital diary of Hanif Kureishi
You’d think a book about a paralysed man lying in hospital for a year would be bound to be depressing.…
The many passions of Ronald Blythe
In Regency Britain, balls were often timed to coincide with full moons. Provided there was no cloud cover, moonlight made…
Out of the depths: Dante’s Purgatorio, by Philip Terry, reviewed
Many readers of Dante get no further than the Inferno. The inscription over the gates of Hell, the demon-haunted circles,…
You didn’t mess with them – the doughty matriarchs of the intelligence world
As Hilary Mantel memorably noted, history represents what people try to hide, and researching it is a question of ferreting…