Only now are we seeing what an extraordinary figure Bob Willis was
Maybe it’s just an age thing, but the death of Bob Willis has left me — and, I am sure,…
Dear Mary: What can we do about our son’s girlfriend’s appalling table manners?
Q. My son has a girlfriend who we like but who has appalling table manners. They come to stay most…
Sumptuous, remote – and forgettable: Locket’s reviewed
Locket’s is a new café from the owners of Wiltons in Jermyn Street. Wiltons is the restaurant that dukes visit…
Where did ‘aconite’ spring from?
‘What,’ asked my husband teasingly, by way of an early Christmas game, ‘connects wolf’s-bane with Woolwich Arsenal?’ It took me…
Spy who came in from the EU
I read Mr le Carré’s latest spy novel, Agent Running in the Field last weekend, despite everything. What do I…
Hugh Ramsay “Miss Nellie Patterson” 1903
This is a great time of the year to visit Canberra and the National Gallery. Despite some ‘gender equality’ grandstanding…
RAP artists of the ABC
Our household switches on ABC TV at 6pm and checks how long it takes to sight an Aboriginal-identifying Australian. Typically,…
Business/Robbery etc
When directors of Australia’s leading companies start questioning the profit motive on which their success was based, then the system…
Death by reverse dog whistle
On 9 October, 2012 Prime Minister Julia Gillard famously stood up in parliament to accuse Leader of the Opposition Tony…
Climate notes
Amid the current crop of climatic horrors being visited on various inhabitants of Queensland and NSW I reflect, having just…
Submarines versus Facebook
Eyeing Beijing, Taiwan’s political class is nervous, yet again. Australia is jumpy too for lesser reasons. Taiwan’s fear looms close…
Brainwashing your kids
In The New Authoritarianism, University of Sydney academic Salvatore Babones makes the telling observation that while elected politicians might believe…
Politician, thy name is hypocrisy
In the National Party room… everyone…tenaciously… opposed dairy deregulation. (But) when they came back in here (into the chamber), they…
US notes
Fake news outs itself Credibility used to matter to the media, but in these days of fake news and media…
No time for complacency, ScoMo
The Australian Election Study has analysed every election result since 1987. In seeking to explain why people voted as they…
Brown study
The newly elected Morrison government is now just over six months old, so it is probably a good time for…
Can Labour’s moderates learn from all their mistakes?
Labour’s defeat is so terrible that it provides the kind of creative destruction that could save the party. It will…
Boris Johnson promises to ‘unite and level up’ the UK. Can he really achieve that?
Boris Johnson’s victory speech in Downing Street was aimed at the voters unsure about his government, whether they be the…
Full transcript: Boris Johnson’s speech on the steps of Downing Street
This morning I went to Buckingham Palace and I am forming a new government. On Monday MPs will arrive at…
The three ‘C’s’ that explain Boris’s historic election win
This was an election as important and as divisive for the UK as Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979. Vast numbers…
Boris Johnson has all the power. Here’s what he’ll do with it
Put aside the surprise at the scale of the Tory gains and look at where those gains came, and consider…
‘We will fight them in the streets’: Labour MP reacts to Tory win
You wouldn’t know Labour had suffered a dismal night in the polls from Lloyd Russell-Moyle’s acceptance speech. The arch Corbynista…
Boris’s big win is a decisive moment in the battle for Brexit
So in the end Leave voters decided to save Nigel Farage from himself by once again using their strategic nous…
‘Victory for Boris’: Today’s front pages react to the Tory landslide
The nation’s newspapers reflect what is the largest political revolution in a generation. Boris Johnson has been able to turn…
