Lazarus’s thirtieth
This week sees the 30th anniversary of the election of one of Australia’s greatest governments, the Howard government. If Australia…
A hoard of lost treasure
Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is the most celebrated of all Australian plays; and this story of the…
Aussie life
Now that Mr Albanese seems finally to have woken up to the problem of Australian antisemitism, nobody should be surprised…
Language
Speccie reader Reona writes to ask where the expression ‘peppercorn rent’ comes from. Well, there once was a time when…
‘I bet there are loads of women who find Farage sexy’: the writers of Industry on putting politics on screen
No TV show better encapsulates the nexus between money and power than Industry. The HBO drama sees investment bankers screwing,…
‘It’s a Faustian pact’: Rachel Reeves is giving bankers what they want
The Epstein files lift the curtain on how power is exercised and influence traded by our financial elite. It is…
A beginner’s guide to Britain’s right-wing parties
The crowded market place emerging on Britain’s right is bewildering. Nigel Farage and Reform UK appeared to have successfully colonised…
Is it still worth going to university?
When self-styled ‘Money Saving Expert’ Martin Lewis gate-crashed Kemi Badenoch’s Good Morning Britain interview to reprimand the Conservative leader over…
Do we really want our politicians to be uneducated?
The interesting thing about political pendulums is that they always over-swing. In the campaign for this week’s Gorton and Denton…
Has it all gone wrong between Trump and Starmer?
‘The Special Relationship only exists when the Americans want something,’ a former Downing Street aide observed after Donald Trump rejected…
