Biden and big tech: a fatal mix?
Trust the union movement to guarantee a sleazy start to the political year
Analysing and critiquing the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is one thing. It’s quite another insinuating that Prime Minister…
China’s bullying backfires: Australia ahead in trade spat
The events might come from a Hollywood script. School bully (China), annoyed over being left out of games (lucrative overseas…
Big Tech: private companies now wielding the coercive power of government like a one-party state
Anyone with siblings knows that trying to win an argument by yelling louder than your sister, or sticking fingers in…
Kevin Andrews’ defeat: a setback for ScoMo at the start of the parliamentary year
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has received an unwanted spanner in the works ahead of Tuesday’s return of parliament with barrister…
Insiders is insiders. How can they speak for ordinary Australia?
This morning I watched Insiders; the first episode of the year. In the first 15 minutes, the three guests —…
It’s shameful being gay was a crime in Victoria before 1980. Daniel Andrews’ conversion practices bill is shameful too
Shamefully, being gay in Victoria was a crime in Victoria before 1980. It will be no less shameful that in…
Biden and big tech: a fatal mix?
For many, Joe Biden is a welcome return to normalcy following four years of Trumpian antics. However, a return to…
The great Kiwi kowtow
News item: New Zealand Trade Minister advises Australia to show China more “respect”. New Zealand has offered to teach Australia…
What happened to the populist left?
To this day, my iPhone still changes the word ‘too’ to ‘TPP,’ a reminder that about five years ago I…
One year after Brexit, Britain is reaping the benefits of independence
A year ago today Britain awoke to a rather muted celebration – which seemed to consist largely of a bubble…
The free speech row tearing apart the tech community
Donald Trump’s Twitter suspension after the riot at the US Capitol made headlines around the world. What was less reported,…
Might Macron lose to Le Pen?
The latest French opinion poll puts Marine Le Pen on around 26 per cent, ahead of President Emmanuel Macron on 23 per…
Dreaming of a White Paper
Honouring Malcom Turnbull by making him a Companion of the Order of Australia gave our 29th Prime Minister an opportunity…
Twiggy’s Green steal?
There was a time when the ABC’s Boyer Lectures made sense. Based on the Reith Lectures sponsored by the BBC,…
Biden’s brave new transgender world
That Joe Biden, on the first day of his presidency, signed an Executive Order advancing the transgender movement sends an…
Stranded
In 2019, America recorded the world’s largest decline in energy-related carbon dioxide. But to credit President Trump, would discredit other…
Humourless moral imbeciles
A century ago one of the best-selling authors in the world was the son of a Scottish Free Church Presbyterian…
Court short
Reserved for ‘eminent achievement and merit of the highest degree in service to Australia’, no more than 35 people in…
Divided We Fall
In the middle of the 15th century, Italian philosopher, bishop, and humanist Francesco Patrizi of Siena wrote a number of…
A great president
The United States has led the free world for the best part of a century, producing a record number of…
On The Beach
The aftermath of Australia Day seems like an appropriate time to watch On the Beach, for a belated first time,…
Elijah Moshinsky
Earlier this month, the opera world sadly absorbed the news of the death of Elijah Moshinsky. Born in Shanghai in…
The Investigation
Slowly, after what seemed like infinite, malingering delays, virus-driven, the world of arts and entertainment is starting to open again…
Masked opera
We were all excited to be there. You would have thought that we hadn’t been to an opera performance. Well,…
Queer Teen Craze
It is remarkable how quickly the cause of transgenderism has moved from being a strange object at the back of…
Lives unlived: Light Perpetual, by Francis Spufford, reviewed
Francis Spufford was already admired as a non-fiction writer when he published his prize-winning first novel, On Golden Hill, in…
A bored business administrator in Leicester puts the intelligence services to shame
In the summer of 2012, a man was walking near Jabal Shashabo, a Syrian rebel enclave, when he spotted a…
Memory – and the stuff of dreams
Can you remember when you heard about 9/11? Chances are you’ll be flooded instantly with memories — not only where…
One of the last men-only jobs left — offshore in the North Sea
As a child, I loved the Ladybird ‘People at Work’ series. I had the ones on the fireman, the policeman,…
A beastly cold country: Britain in 1962
Like this author, I was happily snowbound at a beloved grandparent’s house during the big freeze that began on Boxing…
Holding the Empire responsible for the state of modern Britain is becoming commonplace
It seems to have become a virtual orthodoxy of the academic and publishing worlds that history and fiction now have…
Rescuing Elizabeth Barrett Browning from her wax-doll image
‘Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?’ asks the speaker in Robert Browning’s poem ‘Memorabilia’ — a line which recognises…