Tanya powder keg
Yet again, Tanya Plibersek has shown herself ill-equipped for the critical and sensitive portfolio of foreign affairs. Launching into a…
Scottish diary
Not so long ago I travelled to Dumfries, Scotland, the first leg of the trip being on an Emirates A380.…
Australian notes
Q&A is the ABC’s TV show on which on one famous occasion an anti-Iraq war activist threw his shoes at…
Dinner party anti-Semitism
Even otherwise intelligent and normal people will often reveal their hatred over a few glasses of wine
The new Iraq war
Obama – and Cameron – might like to back away from the War on Terror, but the other side didn't get the memo
Portrait of the week
Home After an Ofsted inspection of 21 schools in Birmingham (none of them faith schools), against the background of allegations…
The true gods of football
No matter how much the players are paid, it’s the spectators who exercise divine wrath
It’s time to address the English question
Regardless of the referendum outcome, major constitutional reform will be needed
Now even Fifa’s dinosaurs have learned to cry racism
You know an accusation has been stripped of all meaning when Sepp Blatter starts using it
It’ll be game over for all of us if the cyber crimewave continues to advance
Plus: Why is everyone so beastly about Mike Ashley?
Save the children
The Birmingham schools row is the logical outcome of years of weak policy and political correctness
Memory
While in the mirror I’m an aging face More or less the same day after day, In the mind’s darker…
Who runs Britain’s mosques?
In America, most mosques profess to teach a version of Islam adapted to the modern world. That's not what I've found here...
Breast advice
So much distress could be spared if a breast-feeding counselling service could be available universally and on demand
Salzburg
It's the touch of darkness underneath the Mozart and Von Trapp trimmings that makes it so fascinating
The incredible journey
A review of Southern Cross to Pole Star: Tschiffely’s Ride, by Aimé Tschiffely. If you can brave bandits, disease and revolution in search of ‘variety’, you might be a doublehard bastard
The cardinal and the con artist
A review of How to Ruin a Queen: Marie Antoinette, the Stolen Diamonds and the Scandal that Shook the French Throne, by Jonathan Beckman. There’s verve and swagger a-plenty in this fascinating story
