The threat from within
According to Vladimir Putin, liberalism is an ‘obsolete’ doctrine, a worn-out political philosophy no longer fit for purpose. In this…
Glaswegian waif
Douglas Stuart has a rare gift. The Scottish writer, whose debut novel Shuggie Bain deservedly won the 2020 Booker Prize,…
Messy family business
Cressida Connolly’s new novel begins with a couple of endings. It’s spring 1855, and on the battlefields of the Crimea…
Moonlit escapades
The Perfect Golden Circle is ostensibly about male friendship. Two men, flotsam of the 1980s – Calvert, a Falklands veteran,…
Bridge
The Spring Fours is one of the great events in the English bridge calendar – a five-day knockout attracting many…
The losing game
When David Cameron was prime minister, the Tories flirted with the idea of a Queen’s Speech with no bills in…
Eccles cakes
When I first made Eccles cakes, I’m not sure I really knew where Eccles was. I certainly didn’t think I’d…
Who’s blinded by class and imperial prejudices?
Tariq Ali, the Marxist writer and activist, believes that a ‘Churchill cult’ is ‘drowning all serious debate’ about the wartime…
TweedleScomo and TweedleAlbo
As we watch our present Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, and the man who seeks to replace him, Anthony Albanese, crisscross…
Could Russia invade Moldova?
Chișinău, Moldova Armed soldiers patrol the checkpoints along the road into Transnistria, standing guard under a giant Soviet hammer and…
Fifty shades of Covid
[Calm down, it’s satire.] She slowly slipped her mask down and removed her gloves. Then lowered her second mask. That…
To ‘crush and colonise’
The Russians may well love their children too, but many of their views about their war on Ukraine span a…
Will the ripples from Roe v. Wade reach Australia?
An American journalist, Caroline Reilly, re-tweeted a New York Times report of the firebombing of a Wisconsin anti-abortion headquarters, together with…
Abortion and the great American middle
Not one American in a hundred has read Roe v. Wade, and perhaps no more of us really understand how…
Courage, fantasy, and the arc of autocracy
Andriy Melnyk is the Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin. In early May he demanded the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, respond to…
Leadership delegated is leadership lost
Is anyone else old enough to remember when any corporate, political, or education leader, said something memorable? Something that left…
Vaccine coercion turns voters off the majors
Australians who have felt coerced into vaccination will spurn the major parties on election day, data suggests. Instead, their vote…
The pregnant man emoji and other absurdities
The world was recently stunned to hear a US Supreme Court nominee tell the Senate what ‘progress’ it was to…
Rich Uncle Albo’s shared equity nightmare
For the worst-crafted, most ineffectual policy of this election campaign it would be hard to go past Rich Uncle Albo’s…
Hong Kong is now a police state
No one now denies that Hong Kong is a fiefdom of Beijing. Its democratic leaders have been packed off to…
Trump is still king in West Virginia
Bipartisanship is a word used too frequently, and seldom ever found in the swamps of Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, Congressman…
Inflation for dummies
My party, the Liberal Democrats, has far more nerdy economists among its members than any other party. It seems low…
Fiscal vandalism alive and well in ‘Danistan’
Dodgy Labor Party politicking and fiscal vandalism are the enduring hallmarks of Daniel Andrews’ leftist government which, in just six…
The fallacious Fauci flips
Why haven’t they fired Dr Anthony Fauci? Although Fauci had been given the task of leading America – and by…
Has inflation peaked?
First, the good news: US inflation is down. Now the bad news: US inflation isn’t down by as much as…
