flat white

Jacinda, Jacinta

I’m not a big fan of self-serving autobiographies, particularly of recently departed political leaders.  I had briefly considered dipping into…

25 Oct 2025

Sorry seems to be the Libs’ hardest word

Do you know that vague sense of unease that comes over you when you feel you must have missed something…

25 Oct 2025

Trump ain’t no king, and he ain’t no Hitler

The No Kings marches across the US were a variation on the ‘Trump is Hitler’ line that has been circulating…

25 Oct 2025

Net zero is il-Liberal

If the Liberal party is truly going to unite around the values it was built upon, there is only one…

25 Oct 2025

Equality, but only for some

Equality is a central theme of the Australian ethos. Freedom and democracy might round out a handsome triumvirate of the…

25 Oct 2025

Australia is not Argentina. Yet.

Every few years, Australian politicians rediscover ‘tax reform’. It is a comforting phrase, soothing to voters and headline writers alike.…

Europe’s net zero retreat

Who would have thought 2019 could now seem a distant, former era?  For it was then that the UK under…

25 Oct 2025

A Rudd awakening

Anthony Albanese came to Washington seeking to strengthen his relationship with the US President based on mutual interests in trade…

25 Oct 2025

Plaid Cymru storms to victory in Caerphilly

The Welsh nationalists have won almost half the vote in the Caerphilly by-election, storming to a victory in a seat…

24 Oct 2025

Why Prince Andrew gets more attention than grooming gangs

This week, a group of Pakistani-heritage men appeared in court. The 54-year-old alleged ringleader stands accused of preying on two…

24 Oct 2025

TfL chief accused of ‘lying’ over tube graffiti claims

Well, well, well. TfL Commissioner Andy Lord has been accused of lying about graffiti on the underground, after he made…

24 Oct 2025

Why I resigned from the national grooming gang inquiry

This week I resigned from the Victims/Survivor Liaison Panel of the National Inquiry into Grooming Gangs. Victims have been fighting…

24 Oct 2025

Jacinda, Jacinta

I’m not a big fan of self-serving autobiographies, particularly of recently departed political leaders.  I had briefly considered dipping into…

25 Oct 2025

Why the Maori party keep doing the haka in parliament

Parliamentary proceedings in New Zealand once again screeched to a halt this week after an unsanctioned performance of the haka…

12 Oct 2025

Rex Landy: women’s rights activist arrested

Four years ago, in this very publication, I made a prediction that a Māori women’s rights activist in New Zealand…

1 Oct 2025

Winston Peters tells UN New Zealand will not recognise Palestine

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, has delivered the nation’s official comments on the Palestine issue to the United Nations.…

27 Sep 2025

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Aussie life

Damn you, politicians. Damn you for what you have done to this country you were supposed to serve and govern…

25 Oct 2025

Politics

Will the Liberal party take a stand on net zero or not? (I am using net zero as a shorthand…

25 Oct 2025

The failed evolution of the horse

The thoroughbred looked cross, with flared nostrils and a pinched expression, so I should have known what was about to…

25 Oct 2025

What does ‘potash’ have to do with potassium?

‘“I am not screwed,” replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. “Whisky and potass does not agree with everybody; but I am not…

25 Oct 2025

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Are Vermeer’s paintings really coded religious messages?

The Delft painter Johannes Vermeer, now probably the most beloved artist of the Dutch Golden Age, had an unusual career.…

25 Oct 2025

The Wall Street Crash never ceases to fascinate

When Winston Churchill dined with the crème de la crème of American finance in New York on 28 October 1929,…

25 Oct 2025

A celebration of friendship – by Andrew O’Hagan

When I interviewed Andrew O’Hagan ten years ago about his Booker longlisted novel The Illuminations, the most striking thing that…

25 Oct 2025

Thrilling tales of British pluck

December 1917. For years the Ottoman Turks have been trying to spark a jihad of the world’s Sunni Muslims, hoping…

25 Oct 2025

Farewell to Lyra: The Rose Field, by Philip Pullman, reviewed

In the middle of The Rose Field, the third volume of Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust trilogy, Lyra has…

25 Oct 2025

The dangerous charm of Peter Matthiessen

In 1951, the American author Peter Matthiessen moved to Paris. The scion of a wealthy Wasp family, he had studied…

25 Oct 2025

Trouble in Tbilisi: The Lack of Light, by Nino Haratischwili, reviewed

For a newly independent Georgia, the 1990s were a dark time literally and figuratively, as civil war raged, criminality flourished…

25 Oct 2025

The disturbing allure of sex robots

By the late 1980s, the war against pornography was lost. Feminists, as well as Christian moralists, mainly in the UK…

25 Oct 2025