Power fail: French tantrum diplomacy is wearing thin
It’s hard for tabloid journalists to engage in mad hyperbole when politicians seem all too willing to do it for…
Sunak faces the free-marketeers
Rishi Sunak didn’t give too much away tonight when he spoke at the ThinkTent Conservative Party Conference. The Chancellor is…
Tough love: why we risk being a really miserable lot
A regular series of rules for life by Pete Shmigel, a former senior state and federal political advisor and CEO…
Priti Patel strikes a bullish tone
The theme of Priti Patel’s party conference speech this afternoon was very much ‘large and in charge’. She devoted much…
The powerlessness of Priti Patel
It is hard not to feel sorry for Priti Patel. She would surely have been a Tory conference darling at the…
How the Tories can ‘level up’ without annoying Nimbys
Have the Conservatives lost their nerve on planning reform? Not quite, but a couple of small interventions at the Conservative…
The contradictory Tory home working jibes
Why have ministers become so obsessed with where people are doing their work? The war on working from home has…
Dave Eggers cancels Amazon
Selling books through Amazon is now part and parcel of a working author’s life. It would be a brave writer…
Why the fringes are taking centre stage at Tory conference
Tory conference is so stage-managed these days that the main hall has long felt like a bit of a sideshow…
Crack open the Dom
Are they any better words we could hear from a leader, any leader, state or federal, than Dom Perrottet’s words…
The Panthers faithful and the true believers: a tale of Western Sydney
Like 3.2 million Australians on Sunday night, I sat down and watched the NRL Grand Final between the Penrith Panthers…
Why Boris is losing his fight against Sturgeon
Gavin Barwell has made a good point, albeit inadvertently. Theresa May’s former chief of staff has a book out, imaginatively…
National Cabinet should not be secret
National Cabinet has provided enormous power to state and territory leaders with very little accountability for their decisions in managing…
Joe Biden and Terry McAuliffe’s ‘conservative’ friends
Former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, in the recent Virginia gubernatorial debate against Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin, touted an odd endorsement:…
WhatsApp collapse throws Tory plots into chaos
The world’s oldest democratic party has had a few problems with technology in recent years. Famously it was the 2018…
The bald and the bonkers
How quickly we forget. Gladys Berejiklian had her ‘sliding doors’ moment with Matt Kean a year into her premiership. Kean…
Their ABC teaches students about “systemic racism”
Abraham Lincoln said, “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in…
Kyrsten Sinema’s harassers shouldn’t get a pass from Biden
Ever wonder why President Biden doesn’t take questions very often? Or more accurately, why his staff doesn’t allow him to…
Is Russia ready for a Romanov restoration?
Hail the tsar! Georgy Romanov, great-grandson of Grand Duke Kirill, cousin to Nicholas II, the ill-fated final Emperor of Russia,…
Xi threatens Taiwan because he’s weak
Over the weekend, China sent waves of warplanes racing towards Taiwan in numbers not seen before, forcing the democratic self-ruled…
Red Wall Tories hit out at cost of net zero
One of the government’s flagship priorities this parliament has been its pledge for Britain to reach ‘net zero’ carbon emissions…
Macron’s selective defence of free speech
In the early years of his presidency, Emmanuel Macron became known as Monsieur ‘En Meme Temps’. The president of France…
Vaccine mandates breach the Disability Discrimination Act? I’ve lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission to see
A couple of weeks back your correspondent paused his gardening to point out that the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth)…
Bodies with vaginas? Women want their sex back
The phrase “adding insult to injury” has never been so appropriate as in the treatment of women by the progressive…
The Catholic Church’s Plenary Council: another case of ‘reform, reform’ – aren’t things bad enough already?
This week, 280 bishops, clergy and laypeople will convene in a Plenary Council to consider issues that will have a…
