Were we lied to about skilled migration?
Before Lindsey Graham died
America was shocked by the sudden death of Senator Lindsey Graham who, it has been reported, died after a short…
Conservative civil war is a distraction
The civil war between the Coalition and One Nation began in earnest last week, so let’s talk about it. To…
Britain discovers Pauline Hanson
This UK trip was meant to be a fact-finding mission for One Nation – a studious exploration of the Populist…
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…
Australia must confront Iran’s shadow war on its shores
Recent warnings from Australian security agencies that hostile state actors, including the Islamic regime of Iran, are allegedly targeting teenagers…
Can One Nation break through the glass ceiling to the majors?
In Australian political history there have been minor parties that were setting up for a big swing but ended up…
Four years of failure from Labor
Most Australians know the economy is not working well. The GDP data show that Australia’s economy is growing, but many…
The Dartmoor Silence
Ann Widdecombe’s father, James Murray Widdecombe CB OBE, was born in Saltash, the small Cornish town where I grew up,…
What’s wrong with national service?
What’s wrong with National Service? Nothing. It’s the name that’s the problem… Mention ‘National Service’ to anyone over fifty and…
Were we lied to about skilled migration?
We believe Australians have been lied to about skilled migration. And analysis of official data only exposes the tip of…
Don’t worry, Big Brother is here to ‘keep you safe’
The Western Australian government recently announced its trial of ‘Overt Live Facial Recognition Technology’. In fact, by the time you’re…
The West’s circular firing squad
There is a peculiar pathology at work in the commentary class of the Western right. It is not stupidity, exactly.…
The Cyrus friendship
More than 2,500 years ago, one of history’s greatest rulers made a decision that changed the course of two peoples…
Artificial Intelligence and the elephant in the data room
Artificial Intelligence is a major issue these days for all sorts of reasons, ranging from union concerns over likely job…
We are happy to fuel everyone’s nuclear future except our own
This week in Melbourne, Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Narendra Modi signed the agreement that opens the door to Australian…
The anatomy of a scandal
The establishment has a single reflex for dealing with insurgents like Pauline Hanson. Only one leader, at the LNP State…
Arash the Archer
In Iranian mythology, Arash the Archer represents the highest form of sacrifice for one’s homeland. His story is not merely…
Ten problems with the Greens’ Anti-Conversion Bill
In keeping with what we has occurred in many other states in Australia, the Greens in Tasmania are seeking to…
I’m a freelance journalist. AI is stealing my work and calling it ‘training’
As someone unfortunate enough to use LinkedIn for work, the amount of AI slop I wade through daily has become…
My daughter changed my mind about quotas
I never thought I’d write a sentence beginning with, ‘My fifteen-year-old daughter has changed my mind about quotas.’ Yet here…
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…
The danger of the Olly Robbins legal challenge
It is hard not to grin. Our lawyerly soon-to-be-former Prime Minister, Mr Process, stands accused of, er, failing to follow…
Trump can’t escape the Iran war
Last Friday, a senior US official gave a background briefing to the media and made some news. First, Iranian officials…
We are heading for a Boriswave disaster
Just eight months ago Shabana Mahmood’s Home Office published a document called, ‘A Fairer Pathway To Settlement’ which described the…
Kemi kick-starts purge of the Tory wets
Kemi Badenoch today set out to prove that she means business when it comes to clearing out the Tory has-beens…
There is nothing worse than a bad radio advert
Hell, I have come to realise, may not be other people, but repeated, everlasting exposure to 30-second radio adverts featuring…
Have heatwaves really killed 2,700 people?
‘June heatwave killed 440 a day at its peak, say climate scientists’ was the Guardian’s splash this morning, while the BBC reported that ‘more…
Burnham’s silence on Islamism speaks volumes
Andy Burnham last week issued a grovelling apology for Labour’s position on Gaza. In a three-minute social media video, he…
Counter terrorism police investigate Widdecombe murder
The investigation into Ann Widdecombe’s death continues to astound. Counter terrorism police have now taken the lead on the probe…
Sometimes MPs must be whipped
Andy Burnham’s plan sounds rather decent, removing the fear factor from whipping and replacing it with a softer, cuddlier function.…
The classless response to Ann Widdecombe’s murder
Ann Widdecombe represented British politics at its best: she was deeply principled and sincere, yet warm and dignified. But in the response to her death, over…
Why Lindsey Graham was always ready for war
Political lives almost always end in failure, or at least anticlimax, but Lindsey Graham went to his reward while in…
Robbins puts Starmer in the dock
Hell hath no fury like a disgruntled former employee – and, in this case, perhaps justifiably so. As Sir Keir…
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…