Bout-rimés
In Competition No. 3161 you were invited to supply a sonnet with certain rhyme words to be used in a…
Letters
The future of offices Sir: I agree with much of Gerard Lyons’s article about the future of the capital (‘London…
The King’s Gambit
Does Bear Grylls play chess? If he does, I’m sure he would favour the King’s Gambit. As chess openings go,…
A fog of forgetfulness
Just imagine: you reach a certain age and you become your own unreliable narrator. Gerald Walker, the protagonist of Richard…
Tom Wolf, king of distraction
Cockburn’s old compadre, Trump campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis, stirred up the internet mob again this week when she dared…
India-Pakistan relations have reached rock bottom
Seventy-three years ago on 15 August, the nation of India awoke, in the immortal words of its first prime minister…
Was Sweden’s refusal to lockdown a gruesome mistake?
Was there ever a jury destined to spend so long over its deliberations as the one considering whether Sweden made…
Europe’s shameful silence on Belarus
I last saw Minsk, my home town, in June 2019. There was no hint of what was to come: Belarussians…
What explains the rising number of children with gender issues?
I have recently read a fascinating new paper, via a Mail on Sunday report, about the growing number of children…
Keir Starmer would be wise to avoid a Lib Dem alliance
The myth that is developing goes like this: Labour can’t win enough seats to form a majority government at the…
In which the Mad F–king Witches jump the shark…
Up the sisterhood? Solidarity forever? Beyond question, at the appropriate juncture, in due course, in the fullness of time? Up…
Smash the system: universities and the rise of market Stalinism
As a new generation of school leavers now consider their options on the basis of predicted A-levels and Highers, what…
Want to fix coronavirus unemployment? First, fix industrial relations regulation
Industrial relations regulation in Australia is too prescriptive and complex, and disempowers both employers and individual workers trying to strengthen…
The joyous Israel-UAE peace deal
There is a time for war and a time for peace, Ecclesiastes tells us. Joyously, in the middle of a…
Fair suck of the sauce bottle, Kev. That’s not racist
Is Kevin Rudd really stupid, as he expects us to believe? Or is he just a rank opportunist who manipulates…
Axe HECS-HELP for failing students? Why not? Universities are supposed to be about learning
Yesterday, Dan Tehan announced a Federal Government plan for first-year university students to lose government funding if they fail more…
Pirate Pete needs a tinfoil bandanna
Poor Pirate Pete. His progressive poll on who the populace think will be the next US President produced a perplexing…
Exclusive: half of Americans support Trump bypassing Congress for COVID relief
More than half of registered voters support President Trump using executive action to bypass Congress and extend coronavirus relief measures,…
Will Trump win Minnesota?
Sen. Amy Klobuchar may have to eat her words after declaring last year that Donald Trump will ‘never win Minnesota’.…
Don’t trendy economic types believe catastrophe is good for the economy? Why are they silent now?
It is the Keynesians who believe that disasters are good for economic growth. They have suggested that events such as…
The UAE-Israel deal is a triumph of Trump’s personal diplomacy
The American-brokered opening of full relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel is a rare outbreak of peace and…
The Israel-UAE peace deal was made in Iran
The last time I was in Israel people were preparing for the worst. ‘This crazy bastard is going to annex…
We’ve failed the class of 2020
Much of the coverage of today’s exam results is dominated by disappointed Jacks and furious Jills. Determined parents are planning…
Why are so many dictators former doctors?
Are we increasingly living under a ‘doctatorship’? The influence of the medical profession over our everyday lives – from personal…
What’s the true cost of lockdown on our kids’ futures?
We’ve heard endless statistics on the likely death toll from Covid-19, and over the past week we have learned just…
