A man with a plan for Manhattan
What makes a city? The collective labour of millions packed into its history; the constant forgetting of incomers who arrive…
Three brides for three brothers
Sunjeev Sahota’s novels present an unvarnished image of British Asian lives. Ours Are the Streets chronicles a suicide bomber’s radicalisation,…
The best times you’ll never remember
It was once a favourite theory of optimistic drunkards that a suitably ‘moderate’ level of alcohol consumption provided covert health…
Star signs
In 2002 I was living in Berlin. One day my upstairs neighbour Peter told me he had just returned from…
A disaster waiting to happen
Mountains are humanity’s most comforting topographical feature. Wherever you find them you will also find those who have flocked to…
No vax, no vote? Macron’s vaccine passport plan sparks fury
Will it be necessary to produce a passe sanitaire (vaccination passport) to be allowed to vote in France? With 221…
There’s nothing wrong with Macron’s war on Islamism
It’s always the French, isn’t it? Not content with having given the modern world existentialism, structuralism, deconstructionism (with some help…
Are we dangerously addicted to Quantitative Easing?
For such a radical change to our monetary system, the lack of understanding of quantitative easing (QE) and its impacts…
My country, right or left
A funny thing happened to me this Fourth of July and, at the risk of having every jaded member of…
The Great Barrier Reef extortion racket
The Australian Institute of Marine Science has just revealed that Great Barrier Reef coral coverage has recovered to be as good as,…
Is the Kids Helpline helpful – or just a sign of our malaise?
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Curtin…
Anti-anti-crime policies are ruining American cities
I didn’t meet Davell Gardner Jr. Yet his photo — and the bubbly personality it captures — will forever remain…
Bezos’s bell-end: a postscript
When he was back on the ground after his – ahem – epic space flight of all of ten minutes, Amazon founder Jeff…
Tory conference to require vaccine passports
Boris Johnson’s announcement on Monday that Covid passports could be introduced for mass events from September did not got down…
Pope Francis is losing his culture war
Since I wroteabout the Pope’s declaration of war on the Old Rite, something unexpected and beautiful has happened. Many bishops…
Covidanity: Australia’s new state religion
A key to understanding our current predicament is the extent to which Covid has come to resemble a religion. Covidanity,…
How do the Tories stop the rise of an ever-bigger state?
When Gordon Brown raised National Insurance in 2002 to put more money into the health service, it was seen as…
What the NHS pay rise says about Boris Johnson’s priorities
Well, that didn’t take long. Two days ago, a leaked report revealed that the government was considering using a national insurance…
Myanmar is on the verge of collapse
Deep in southeast Asia sits a country where 54 million people are living a total nightmare. A nation that, benighted…
The disgraceful decision to remove Liverpool’s heritage status
Unesco has cancelled the ‘World Heritage Status’ of the Necropolis at Memphis and the Giza Pyramid because a Radisson Blu…
Northern Irish unionists are united against the protocol
The DUP’s departed leader Edwin Poots spoke in his valedictory interview of a ‘significant victory’ heading unionism’s way regarding its…
The Troubles amnesty and the hypocrisy of Sinn Fein
Predictably – and understandably – the Northern Ireland Office’s proposed amnesty for crimes relating to the Troubles has resulted in…
It’s not woke versus woke if lesbians want to exclude the transgendered
The street I grew up on was the border of a public housing estate. On my side of the street…
The Brave New World of ‘sex-positive’ education
The first time I read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, I was thrown by the references to children as young as…
