Who the hell were they polling?
Readers should take this morning’s Newspoll from The Australian, ‘Turnbull beats Abbott on leadership and values’, with a pinch of…
The stupidest thing the federal government does
This is a tale of idiocy, full of facts and foreboding, signifying that the end times must be surely upon…
The euthanasia op-ed the papers wouldn’t run
Compassion for people at the end of life is a fundamental reflection of our humanity. We care. It’s what people…
When did the war on men blight all sides of politics?
When did being a “mediocre white man” become a crime in Australia? When did it become the acceptable butt of…
The Cory Show
Senator Cory Bernardi is blitzkrieging the east coast at the moment, holding a series of meetings and interviews. I caught…
Ordure in the House
We’re about to be gifted, courtesy of ‘Our ABC’ a new series hosted by Annabel Crabbe, she of the ‘take…
Since when was democracy a right wing thing?
Does it strike anyone else as ironic that the push to reform the preselection process of candidates and give grassroots…
How many safeguards are needed to make assisted suicide safe?
The Final Report of the Ministerial Advisory Panel on ‘Assisted Dying’ set up by Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews late in…
2319: Poem III
Unclued lights are words from a famous poem whose title will appear in the completed grid and must be shaded.…
No. 2316: Divine alteration
Redundant words were 12A virgin, 16A crazy, 38A mammal, 18D state, 21D greed, 25D tendon, 34D extremist. These respectively defined…
Dear Mary
Q. Last summer a friend of my brother-in-law’s house-sat for us while we were in Greece for a week. We…
A strange vibration
Among the many curiosities revealed in this book, few are more startling than the fact that at the height of…
Playing Stalin for laughs
Christopher Wilson’s new novel is much easier to enjoy than to categorise. And ‘enjoy’ is definitely the right word, even…
The new age of the refugee
After years of estrangement in a foreign land, what can immigrants expect to find on their return home? The remembered…
By Patten or design?
My old friend Richard Ingrams was said always to write The Spectator’s television reviews sitting in the next-door room to…
Something in the water
‘It was a shock, and an epiphany,’ says Fiona Sampson, to realise that many of her favourite places were built…
The infamous four
Most books about British traitors feature those who spied for Russia before and during the Cold War, making it easy…
The cold grip of fear
A screenwriter sits in a lovely rented house somewhere up an Alp in early December. The air is clear, the…
A choice of short stories
It can’t be easy to switch between editing others people’s fiction and writing your own: how do you suspend that…
Salt-beef delirium
Katz’s Delicatessen, established 1888, is a theme park of Jewish-American food, with tribute gift shop, on the lower east side…
Batteries fail to spark
Elon Musk is such a good salesman that, despite formidable and blindingly obvious problems, he has managed to convince everyone…
Ideological evasion
Malcolm Turnbull’s speech to London think tank Policy Exchange on 11 July provided an insight into his government’s ideology, and…
Tony, Donald and the X Factor
Ernst Bertram’s study Nietzsche: Versuch einer Mythologie was published in 1918, but its first English translation, under the subtitle Attempt…
Business/Robbery etc
July is a wonderful month, blessed by federal parliament not sitting and so temporarily depriving the Turnbull government of opportunities…
Economical with… free speech
The Spycatcher trial established Malcolm Turnbull’s reputation at the time as a brilliant champion of free speech. Personally, reviewing a…
