Sink Labor in Secret Harbour
Remember at the tail end of June when Andrew Hastie declared war on One Nation only for Pauline Hanson to…
They’ve found a new way to destroy One Nation
Labor, the Coalition, and the media are attempting to do something very clever to destroy One Nation, and it’s not…
Are Teal voters turning Orange?
I was sent the unintentionally hilarious article in the Australian Financial Review titled: Here’s who’s really funding Pauline Hanson’s political takeover. It’s…
Julia Gillard claims it was a ‘different time’
Julia Gillard’s attempt to backpedal on gender laws is wild. For those who missed it, Julia Gillard’s Labor government was…
One flag, two economies
On 17 June, at the National Press Club, Pauline Hanson said the sentences that have kept the commentariat employed ever…
En Garde for the common good
Politics is complicated, particularly for young people. My fellow Gen Z conservatives often find ourselves in a never-ending intellectual duel,…
Are Labor’s so-called productivity reforms ‘shovel-ready’?
A tradesperson in Geelong is not automatically recognised as one in Townsville. Forms have to be filled out and applications…
The unproductive public service
When I look at tax, I get increasingly concerned with how comfortable we are becoming with the government’s lack of…
One standard or none at all, Albanese!
When comedian Nikki Osborne asked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to play a game of ‘shag, marry, date’ with Kylie Minogue,…
Green energy turned into Armageddon
Earlier this week, I wrote that our Prime Minister is far from cool. I didn’t say he isn’t cunning. By…
There is a single law: the outsider is not fit to govern
Our most serious commentators are certain the arrivistes in our politics cannot govern. The record establishes only that certainty is…
The sun never goes down on the American Empire
On June 17, 2026, Donald Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran at the Palace of Versailles. The symbolism…
Slippin’ Jimmy goes to Canberra
I decided to revisit Better Call Saul over the weekend. One thing that stuck out to me was the nickname…
What the Princess of Wales said at Wimbledon without saying anything
The most devastating intervention in the Duke of Sussex’s long war over his British security detail came last week, and…
What I learned at ARC
With everything completely stonkered, hope is often in short supply. But for me and thousands of others, the Alliance for…
Sweep the sheds
The great New Zealand rugby sides have long lived by a simple mantra: ‘Sweep the sheds.’ The phrase refers to…
Are we sheep?
A little under two years ago, almost three months following the UK’s general election, the dean of British psephology noted…
Albo’s cold fart warmed up, or Gus’ genuine cool?
Anthony Albanese stepped off his RAAF jet last October in his jeans with a Joy Division T-shirt stretched across his…
An open letter to the Honourable Angus Taylor
Dear Sir, First, I would like to say that your low rating in the polls is largely the fault of…
The danger of drift
CS Lewis once observed, ‘It is funny how day by day nothing changes. But when you look back, everything is…
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…
A very English revolution
Everyone has their own way of thinking about America’s Declaration of Independence. For some, it is the birth certificate of…
The treason of the tenured
Associate Professor Matthew Champion of the University of Melbourne has spent his career studying how medieval and early modern communities…
Out and about with B1
I guess it makes political sense. Having taken a second job, Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen – B1…
The beautiful game?
A s some readers may recall, I love competitive sports. I played varsity basketball at university in Canada. I represented…
Style versus substance
When subscription news captions recently blared the words ‘Far-Left Winning Streak’ inside the Democratic party, they were reacting to a…
China Shock 2.0
Whenever people cite causes of the global financial crisis, they often blame the era’s macroeconomic imbalances, the same distortions behind…
Men without books
I once heard a clever quote that The Simpsons had run out of content because it had successfully deconstructed its…
Bread, circuses and ballistic missiles
If we were to dignify Anthony Albanese with a governing ethos, it would be bread and circuses. As national debt…
Is the Sky-ITV deal good for British TV?
The proposed sale of ITV’s broadcasting arm to Sky has been greeted, for the most part, with a kind of…
Marine Le Pen’s return is a nightmare for French centrists
Marine Le Pen’s comeback has thrown France’s presidential election into disarray as rivals for the Élysée Palace scramble to revise…
Why Count Binface could beat Farage
It looks like it’s going to be a straight fight between Nigel Farage and Count Binface to be the next…
Mel Stride names his Price
The winds of change are blowing through Whitehall. With Andy Burnham on course for No. 10, officials are preparing for…
Farage isn’t the first MP to force a protest by-election
Reporting on the news that Nigel Farage is planning to resign his seat to force a by-election, Le Monde described the stunt as…
Why is Sunny Hostin scared of the American flag?
The View’s Sunny Hostin said Monday that when she walks into communities with American flags, she “suddenly feels unsafe.” After…
Put Paul Dacre in the Lords
For those us who dabble in journalism, it is a constant effort to make our prose as engaging, punchy, and…
The terminally mediocre were on full display at DPMQs
Sir Keir Starmer was away this week. Nothing new there of course; indeed, it seems the thing which will change…
Nigel Farage isn’t the one behaving badly in Clacton
So this is what people mean when they say “Uniparty”. They mean supposed rivals reading from the same corporate script.…
Trump has not forgotten about Greenland
If European leaders had a bingo card of all the fights Donald Trump could pick with them, at this week’s…
In defence of doorstepping
I’ve knocked more doors in my time than I can count. When I was a reporter on the road, I…
What we found inside Ukraine’s secret missile factory
There are few experiences stranger than climbing into the back of a minibus and being blindfolded. Emblazoned across the front…
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…
What will Jacinda Ardern do next?
When I first met Jacinda Ardern in the early 2010s, the notion that the young MP with the toothy smile…
Why Count Binface could beat Farage
To be trans Hamlet or not to be
Is there something strange about seeing a great comedian who identifies as a trans woman do a solo Hamlet, the…
Tip-Toeing in Manchester
The world knows that Andy Burnham, the ‘King from the North’, was a very successful mayor of Manchester. There have…
Beauty, blarney and banshees
It’s a bit odd in its way that a fair fraction of the more or less British theatre we watch…
Striped caps and striking shoes
June 11 saw the death of the Yorkshire-born English painter David Hockney who was arguably the most celebrated painter of…
Buckle up for the smack-downs: the media behemoth that is modern wrestling
For British readers of a certain age, wrestling occupies a very particular place in the collective memory. Long before the…
An ill-fated romance: Dark is the Morning, by Rupert Thomson, reviewed
As a prolific writer of literary fiction, Rupert Thomson has had plenty of practice in creating a good story. In…
The art of betrayal: Exhibition, by Alex Hyde, reviewed
Exhibition, Alex Hyde’s second novel, recounts the intimate, messy, ambiguous and ultimately ill-fated relationship between two fictionalised Young British Artists…
What precipitated a worldwide total war in the 1930s?
More than 80 years after it ended, we are still living through the aftermath of the second world war. When…
Distant shadows: Frame 37, by Nicholas Shakespeare, reviewed
In photography, balance, whether radial, conceptual or symmetrical, is critical to the success of a composition. An unbalanced photograph can…
How does the Catholic J.D. Vance justify Trumpian policies?
‘Read Hillbilly Elegy,’ a friend messaged me a decade ago. ‘The author really gets it.’ So I did, and indeed…
Too close for comfort: Family Friends, by Chloë Ashby, reviewed
‘Across the courtyard the water glistens a pale blue, the sun’s rays shimmering on its surface. The surrounding garden is…
Southern Gothic: the horror story of Alex Murdaugh, paterfamilias and ‘family annihilator’
The central figure of The Family Man, the lawyer Alex Murdaugh (pronounced ‘Murdock’), spends his life getting implicated in so…