Much is riding on 2028
Do politicians have the right to block citizens on social media?
Politicians, or perhaps their shallow-minded media managers, have been going crazy with the ‘block’ button. If you call the Treasurer…
I can’t believe they haven’t banned Community Notes
The fragile feelings and unconvincing campaign promises of politicians are under threat from … X’s Community Notes. We know because…
The Netflixification of the Royals
Royal Watchers will be aware of the unexpected news that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are evacuating California after a…
The shadow war on undersea cables
Undersea cables are like veins… People don’t pay them much mind until one gets nicked and there’s blood all over…
Prime Minister, why should data centres underwrite wind if it is so cheap?
Reading in The Australian Financial Review that data centres will have to get 40 per cent of their power from…
Wobbly Dr Who scenery
Effective leaders are reassuring figures who do not leave you counting your fingers after you shake their hand. Explanations of…
The undefended flank
In January this year, the British government quietly posted a fourteen-page document on a departmental website. There was no press…
Where there is no vision, the people will perish
My birthday this year, April 17 as usual, was met with the announcement of a new coastal ship. Never mind…
A pity both sides can’t lose
When asked his thoughts on the Iran and Iraq war, Henry Kissinger is reported to have said: ‘It’s a pity…
Labor refuses to consult Jewish community on divisive bill
As reported by this masthead last week, the Carroll Government has introduced the Associations Incorporation Reform Amendment Bill 2026 to…
Give us back our beer, smokes, and super
As much as I would like to smoke one of my tobacco pipes from my collection, the last time I…
Fixing Australia’s inflation problem
Inflation is overwhelmingly the greatest current economic concern of most Australians, according to a recent community survey by the Reserve…
Miscarriage risk: are we still allowed to ask questions?
It wasn’t long ago that giving medications during pregnancy – particularly new treatments – was approached with considerable caution. The…
From Woman, Life, Freedom to Javid Shah: how the streets answered
As 16 September approaches, the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in the custody of the Islamic regime occupying Iran, it…
Two plus two equals five
When recounting his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell admits, while being killed or maimed by bombs was…
The ABC radicalised my father
I grew up in the peaceful suburbs of Brisbane in a time before the 24-hour news cycle. Of a weekend…
Dismantling the syndicate
One Nation’s proposal to slash Australia’s federal tobacco excise by 75 per cent represents the first major political move to…
The case for a progressive conservative school rally
The student strike and protest of school children against One Nation and its Leader, Pauline Hanson, has been rightly condemned…
Forgiving those who sin against us
Labor politician Dave Kelly MP, Member for Bassendean, wishes for Western Australia’s Parliament to consider removing the daily recital of…
I was right from the very beginning
Today I received a gratifying message from my mother who lives in Brazil. The message, which refers to Brazilian journalists…
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…
Super spivs
Australia’s compulsory superannuation scheme, says Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg, is ‘a massive failure, probably the biggest failure of public policy…
Brown study
The Spectator Australia has just received a leak of the latest entry in the private diary of Anthony Albanese, Prime…
A royal commission for Victoria
One of the key differentiating points between outgoing Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, and newbie, Ben Carroll, was their preparedness to…
The great company tax trick
Every few months the same story does the rounds. Business groups circulate charts showing Australia’s 30-per-cent company tax rate near…
Missive from Monocultural land
As our brave and fearless editor has recently pointed out, the most monocultural parts of Australia are the institutions captured,…
Japan’s indebtedness threatens the world
In the sea off eastern Japan one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded erupted in March 2011 and created a…
Much is riding on 2028
Around Australia in places of influence Senator Pauline Hanson is depicted as a gaffe-prone, embarrassing, right-wing extremist and a danger…
Pauline – prime ministerial patriot
They say she’s a racist and that she’s not prime ministerial. In what the media admit are its ‘gotcha stakes’,…
Labor pains
Governments do not like to govern. Governing requires choices. Choices create losers and losers complain. It is much easier to…
The Art of the Impossible
It is a tragedy that Jason Arday cut short his life after a slew of his impossible claims were exposed.…
Albo’s boob job
It is hard to think of a less dignified individual for the critical role of representing Australian interests around the…
Can Ben, the Kmart kid, avert the crash?
Around the corner from where we live in suburban Melbourne, there is a sign that reads ‘Fault Identified’. It is…
France is rediscovering its Catholic soul
The Pope is arriving in Paris like a rock star next month, taking centre stage at a mass rally of…
The myth of the Third World
America is rediscovering the work of Spectator writer Shiva Naipaul. His 1980 book about the Jonestown massacre, Journey to Nowhere:…
Why you can’t ignore Ukraine
Russia’s war in Ukraine is midwife to a revolution in military affairs. Such revolutions arise from new technologies that do…
Is this really the ‘most dangerous man in Germany’?
Ulrich Siegmund is ‘the most dangerous man in Germany.’ So says Der Spiegel in a headline under a mug-shot style…
The joy of walking out of a bad play
I get on well with my sister. We speak most days, although I’ve noticed a certain froideur recently. It took…
Amsterdam’s growing gun problem
When discussing the little differences between the US and Europe in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) tells fellow gangster…
The Floydification of Jason Arday’s death
The Russian word pravda is often translated as “truth”, but it can also mean “justice”. The proto-Slavic prav had that latter meaning, pravo refers to a…
The ‘paranoid style’ is back in American politics
Scarcely had the last warmth drained from Charlie Kirk’s body than the theories began to take shape. It wasn’t a…
Andy Burnham can’t get enough of reviews and consultations
They’re always tough, the first weeks back at work after a holiday, but the Prime Minister really has been off…
Britain is in for a difficult autumn
How hard is this autumn going to be? This week’s economic figures suggest pretty hard: job losses, higher-than-expected borrowing, and…
Zia Yusuf gives me the ick
Rather like Andy Burnham, you can imagine a younger version of Zia Yusuf being sent into Love Island in the…
Parents should be held responsible for the crimes of their children
‘Do you know where your children are?’ I remember watching TV in Washington D.C. in 1969 and listening to my…
Why you shouldn’t shrug at New Zealand’s greyhound racing ban
Greyhound racing ended in New Zealand on August 1. Those who neither own a greyhound nor care for the sport…
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…
Jason Arday’s tragic death is no reason to silence the press
This devastating portrait of Americana
It’s more than 75 years since Lee J. Cobb opened in Elia Kazan’s production of Death of a Salesman and…
An aggravated splendour
Rod Liddle, who died on 2 August, was a journalist of genius and you could only feel a bit wonder-struck…
An exercise in murder
A friend said recently that the only two people he knew who had read Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers…
A gurgle of merriment
Chekhov is tricky. He’s not someone we think of as uproarious but the playwright himself used sometimes to complain that…
The enigma of Juba II, ‘the most fortunate captive ever taken’
What a fantastic subject this would be for a film. Born a prince of Numidia, in northern Africa, the hero…
From housemaid to monster: The Mare, by Angharad Hampshire, reviewed
In 1957, Russell Ryan, an American is holidaying alone in Austria. There he meets a young woman called Hermine Braunsteiner.…
How have we allowed star ratings to take over our lives?
Sometimes I like to imagine who I’d be without the internet. A better person, for sure. A person who has…
‘I always had a good life’: the boast of the 1970s’ most notorious terrorist
If you remember the 1970s you might also remember Carlos the Jackal, an international terrorist notorious for taking the Opec…
Always second but actually invincible: Agrippa, by Robert Harris, reviewed
Any readers of Robert Harris’s new novel who aren’t ancient historians might be surprised to discover what an important figure…
Shots in the dark: Fatal Love, by Louisa Treger, reviewed
Ruth Ellis was, as everyone knows, the last woman in Britain to be hanged – her case a catalyst for…
‘A wonderful, wacky woman’: a tribute to Betty Freedman
David Hockney painted ‘Beverly Hills Housewife’ between l966 and 1967, during an exceptionally happy period of his life. He was…
Finally – an authoritative, stimulating history of the modern Middle East
Around 350 pages into Simon Sebag Montefiore’s exhilarating and accomplished history of the modern Middle East, we reach the present…