Australia and its King
Are Australia’s childish premiers jealous of the King’s popularity?
Support for a republic is at an all-time low. So low, indeed, that Anthony Albanese has quietly abolished the Assistant…
No means no: one year on from the Voice to Parliament
One year ago, Australia told the Canberra Bubble ‘no’. No, we will not accept racial division. No, we will not…
The eSafety Commissioner concedes – for now
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has conceded their position regarding orders sent to X to block footage of the attack on Bishop…
Did Queensland Labor nick the Greens’ school lunches policy?
The Greens are demanding credit for Queensland Labor’s last minute ‘promise’ to spend $1.4 billion providing ‘free’ lunches to primary…
Green Hydrogen limps toward inevitable demise
Fortescue Metals Group, a leading Australian iron ore miner, has been actively pursuing green hydrogen as a key component of…
Australia and its King
If we believe the mass media, the monarchy is no longer a divinely ordained institution, but only another part of…
Antisemitism is an ongoing plague at the UN
The rise of anti-Semitism in Australia has continued in recent months, aided and abetted by the Greens. The Labor government,…
SpaceX launch blocked by Californian bureaucrats
The Californian Coastal Commission have voted down a request from SpaceX to increase space flights. Launch limits per year were…
Golf – the final patriarchal frontier
Anika Wells, Australia’s Sports Minister, has come out swinging her heaviest club, opening a new front on the war against…
Conservatives are fighting back in the ACT
Following the ‘unjust excommunication’ of Elizabeth Kikkert from the Liberal Party of Australia, Family First has gained a new face…
Obama’s campaign: something old, something new
Did you see Barack Obama lamenting to a group of black Americans that Kamala Harris is not enjoying the enthusiastic…
The Christian vote swings against Labor
When planning for the next federal election, due by September 2025 with some pundits suggesting as early as March, Prime…
Navigating disastrous DEI
So impressed with the Samoans’ numerous canoes and their great skills in handling them, French Admiral Louis de Bougainville named…
Australian politics is no longer fit for human consumption
Dysfunctional, insulting, thuddingly tedious – rarely have our national politics been as bland, stage-managed, or inconsequential as they are today.…
Vic Libs: four years of power in 25 since Kennett lost
Recent polls show that the Liberals are more popular in Victoria (or less unpopular) than Labor for the first time…
What happened to conviction politics for Queensland’s pro-life candidates?
In 2019, before she was pre-selected to represent the Liberal National Party in the seat of Rockhampton, Donna Kirkland posted…
Albo’s Orwellian Bill
A friend of Socrates once visited the Delphic oracle to ask who is the wisest man in the world. The…
Misinformation laws will feed attacks on Western history
Tucker Carlson has a unique ability to blow up the internet, and he did so again recently when history podcast…
Hostage to evil
In the year since 7 October, a Hebrew song has emerged as an unofficial anthem. The song is ‘Acheinu’, a…
Israel’s strategic circles
The serially repeating cycles of violence and ceasefires have produced bloodshed without end in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The line between…
‘Je suis Juif? Non’
‘Je suis Charlie!’ was the cry adopted by supporters of freedom of speech and freedom of the press after the…
Spare us the cringeworthy back story
I’m in charge of streaming in our household – someone must be. Luckily, there is a joint preference for contemporary…
Iran’s toxic foreign policy
In 1985 when Soviet diplomats were kidnapped by Islamist extremists, the KGB resolved the misunderstanding by castrating a relative of…
Let freedom ring out (and go through to voicemail)
As we know from the debate around the Voice referendum last year, most of us want equality for indigenous Australians…
Macron is in office, but is he in power?
Emmanuel Macron is said to be appalled by his new right-wing government. A confidant of the French president conveyed to…
India’s ‘murder’ spat with Canada has come at the worst time
The alleged involvement of agents of a foreign government in the murder of a citizen is a crime that violates…
Australia’s republicans are embarrassing themselves over King Charles’s visit
Australia, where King Charles will return to on Friday, is where the monarch became a man. In 1966, Charles had…
Tim Davie and the death of BBC ‘talent’
Has anyone ever come up with a better put-down for Nick Robinson? It is even better that it came from…
How New Zealand managed to sink a tenth of its naval fleet
New Zealand just lost one tenth of its naval defence fleet. The HMNZS Manawanui – the jewel in the nation’s small military…
How does New Zealand solve a problem like China?
New Zealand’s most important trading partner is also the nation’s biggest security headache, according to a new risk-assessment report produced…
Why are so many young people abandoning New Zealand?
Heading to the UK is a longstanding rite of cultural passage for many Kiwis. People like my youngest son, who…
Kiwi life
New Zealand in crisis Given the destruction the previous Labour government inflicted on this country, and the damage caused by…
Israel’s Iron Prime Minister
Grave and terrible elements
There’s something horrifying about Monsters, the Netflix streamer about the Menendez brothers who, back in 1989, murdered their mother and…
Why Threads is still the most terrifying film ever made
As we inch ever closer to Halloween, the inevitable lists of the scariest films ever made have already begun to…
Paul McCartney never got over his filmmaking flop
Witnessing the recent imperial progress of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, it occurred to me how impossible it is to imagine…
Distinctive ambitions
It will be fascinating to see the retrospective of work by Jan Senbergs who died this year and who looms…
Three great minds explore the enigmas of the universe
It sounds like a Tom Stoppard play. A big-shot philosopher meets a big-shot boffin by way of a big-shot writer…
Panning for music gold: The Catchers, by Xan Brooks, reviewed
They were known as song catchers: New York-based chancers with recording equipment packed in the back of the van, heading…
Small-town mysteries: A Case of Matricide, by Graeme MacRae Burnet, reviewed
The gifted writer Graeme Macrae Burnet makes a mockery of the genres publishers impose on credulous readers. The author of…
Potato crisps and the British character
Pickled fish. Lemon tea. Cucumber. Doner kebab. Stewed beef noodles. Salted egg. Soft shell crab. Coney island mustard. Smoked gouda.…
Familiar scenarios: Our Evenings, by Alan Hollinghurst, reviewed
There’s a certain pattern to an Alan Hollinghurst novel. A young gay man goes to Oxford. He’s middle class and…
What do we mean when we talk about freedom?
When the Yale historian and bestselling author Timothy Snyder was 14, his parents took him to Costa Rica, a country…
The Christian view of sex contains multitudes
Lower Than the Angels (that is the condition of man, according to the psalmist and St Paul) is a book…
How can Ireland survive the seismic changes of the past three decades?
Historians in Ireland occupy a public role – unlike in Britain, where those with an inclination towards the commentariat usually…