Workers on boards: red herring from the 1970s or useful negotiating card?
‘We’re going to have not just consumers represented on company boards, but workers as well,’ Theresa May declared in July.…
How I learned to embrace my inner toff
I do hope it’s a terrible winter this year: a total bastard where everyone’s snowed into their drives and those…
The Spectator’s Notes
It seems perplexing that François Fillon, now the Republican candidate for the French presidency, should be a declared admirer of…
Closing credits
BBC1’s The Missing has been one of the undoubted TV highlights of 2016. Yet, even thrillers as overwhelmingly thrilling as…
The Dictator delusion
It was a warm tropical night in 1995 and Fidel Castro was playing the waiting game with Gareth Evans. The…
Diary
It is odd when someone you know becomes a world-famous Nazi. You may not recognise the name Richard Spencer, but…
The Dictator delusion
It was a warm tropical night in 1995 and Fidel Castro was playing the waiting game with Gareth Evans. The…
Business/Robbery etc
‘Free beer for all the wharfies when the red revolution comes’ When Chris Corrigan’s 1998 stevedore revolution changed the…
Australian diary
In the pretty medieval city of Wroclaw one highlight is the pierogis – the fat, soggy dumplings Poland is famous…
Can this sweet little girl get out of Aleppo alive?
Every morning, after the children go to school, I turn on my computer to check that Bana Alabed is alive…
The sexy new face of cigarette packaging
Something for which to thank the government, at last. It is much, much more fun buying cigarettes these days. It…
It’s time for CANZUK
No countries have a closer relationship with Australia than New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. We have shared history…
Pauline and Julian: the (bloody) odd couple
As Australia’s political year fizzles to an ignominious end, the political oddity which is One Nation continues as the gift…
Review: Dinner with Armand de Brignac
A fine time was had by all at the Dickie Fitz Restaurant and Dining Room in London W1 the other…
The neoliberals ate my maths homework
The latest international maths and science results suggest that Australia is a slow learner when it comes to improving school…
The Greens: drugs ok, e-cigarettes evil
The Greens have relaunched their drug policy, with party members approving Richard Di Natale’s proposed changes at their national conference in…
Should you tell ABC types the truth about Santa?
The ABC asks all the important questions like “Should you tell your kids the ‘truth’ about Santa?” – and answers them: “Is…
Restaurateur Gavin Rankin enjoys a gastronomic trip to Belgium
Restaurateur Gavin Rankin enjoys a gastronomic trip to Belgium but wishes travelling companion, chef Rowley Leigh, had kept his mouth…
My secret alt-right shame (as told to The Guardian)
I’ve been floating the idea of hoaxing The Guardian for years now. The plan was to pose as some emotionally…
The fat bogan tax
Last week the good people at Centre for Authoritarian Ideas – otherwise known as the Grattan Institute – released a…
Demockracy
Australia is becoming a mock democracy; a demockracy. It is observable on a daily basis as some politicians, journalists and…
The latest from The Age…
Forget the tyranny of low expectations. The opposite happens at The Age. As its standards plummet, the paper soars to…
Parliament should stay sitting until its work is done
Where is Professor Triggs when you want her? How could the Turnbull government be so mean and petty and also,…
Labor must share blame for GP co-payment fallout
Last Friday, Fairfax ran a report by Latika Bourke on my talk to the Centre for Independent Studies, as the so-called…
Military injustice
Was it William Shakespeare who wrote, “Put a lawyer into uniform but it cannot a soldier make”? Perhaps not, but…
