A holy night for nostalgia and self-reflection
Bondi Beach mass shooting terror attack: what we know so far
Details remain unconfirmed, but what we know for certain is that Australia will never be the same after this. Bondi…
One Nation’s conservative conversion
There are rumours that One Nation is head-hunting another two Coalition members. If true, this is Reform behaviour. Nigel Farage’s…
Frosty relations
Treasurer Jim Chalmers made a song and dance about Antarctic investment earlier in December, obscuring the deteriorating situation in Australia’s…
Blood and circuses
The scary corners of the internet are going mainstream, not because they have moderated their rhetoric, but rather our government…
Under 16 social media ban isolates teens with medical conditions
I was born with a rare disorder 54 years ago, and for 43 of those years I felt like an…
Can Albo deflect his way out of this one?
Let’s talk about Bondi. More specifically, the reaction to Bondi. The dust has settled and the politicking has begun. Let’s…
A holy night for nostalgia and self-reflection
Christmas is one time of the year where it is okay to let nostalgia off the chain. I like to…
A short history of Kremlin thugs
To President Trump, the time for talking to Vladimir Putin is really over. He’s insulting you daily with the military…
When ideology replaces judgment, citizens pay the price
As 2025 draws to a close, Australia faces a failure more profound than any single policy misstep. Our institutions are…
The Iranian-Australian community
As an Iranian writer who has lived in Australia for nearly 11 years and has been collaborating with The Spectator…
This won’t blow over, Albanese
From Nuremberg: I’ve been exploring the city that was home to both the beginning and the end of the most…
Never ever again
On 15 December, I witnessed horrific news footage of a massacre at Bondi, a nation reeling, not from an unforeseeable…
Australia’s conservative heart is scattered
Australia’s political right is fracturing, but not because conservatives suddenly discovered a dozen new philosophies. The truth is far simpler,…
Australia’s fatal moral naivety
One of the great confusions in modern Australia is the belief that niceness equals alignment. Every Australian has had a…
Appeasement 0, Jew Hatred 15
As, slowly and painfully, we come to terms with what happened on Bondi Beach on Sunday, I divide my reactions…
That is no country for old men
‘That is no country for old men,’ wrote W.B. Yeats, turning his gaze toward Byzantium as a symbol of civilisational…
A Traveller’s tales
Back in Australia after six months in England and America. London packed with tourists but overall is more depressing than…
The name’s Allan, James Allan
‘The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced…
Gallows state
Iran is experiencing one of its deadliest waves of executions since the 1979 revolution. A tactic once used to instil…
Fictionomics Awards
Allow me offer you a sobering thought before you reach for the Esky. The social cost of alcohol in Australia…
Tucker Qatarlson’s Christmas carol
My dreaming of a white Christmas was rudely interrupted by a social media post containing a guide for antisemites on…
Travels in Transylvania
It’s not often that Tripadvisor suggests you stay at a hotel owned by His Majesty the King of Australia. But…
Bring on 2026!
I’m a glass-half-full kind of person. That doesn’t mean I always have half a glass of something in my hand;…
The grift that keeps on grifting
Australia’s retreat from hosting Cop31 has sparked disappointment and relief in equal measure, the relief being that the nation has…
Will Australia finally take anti-Semitism seriously?
After four days of looking like a rabbit in the headlights, embattled Australian prime minister, Labor’s Anthony Albanese, finally started…
Why misogyny lessons for schoolboys will backfire
All parents and teachers of teenagers will know two things. The first is that teenagers are the human equivalent of…
Europe has left Ukraine living on borrowed time
Russia started the war on Ukraine, so Russia should pay for the damage it has wrought. Such was Volodymyr Zelensky’s…
The fiscal case for mass migration is being demolished
Perhaps because it’s the week before Christmas, the Migration Advisory Committee’s (MAC) latest annual report has attracted little attention. Many…
What will Jacinda Ardern do next?
When I first met Jacinda Ardern in the early 2010s, the notion that the young MP with the toothy smile…
The de-Wokification of New Zealand’s education system
The conservative coalition government of New Zealand came to office promising to wind back an enormous, government-run system of ‘Woke’…
Jacinda, Jacinta
I’m not a big fan of self-serving autobiographies, particularly of recently departed political leaders. I had briefly considered dipping into…
Why the Maori party keep doing the haka in parliament
Parliamentary proceedings in New Zealand once again screeched to a halt this week after an unsanctioned performance of the haka…
The end of the climate cult
The full range of diversions
Who can say what a world of Christmases will unfold this year? Sir Keir Starmer was knighted for services to…
The sheer scope of his work
When Tom Stoppard, playwright extraordinaire, was at the early height of his fame, with Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons in…
Confused and cumbersome
Anne-Louise Sarks’ production of that dazzling dramatic opera Carmen at Melbourne’s Regent was sometimes lit like a Christmas tree, sometimes…
Pit full of snakes
What a cheering thing it is that David Szalay has won the Booker Prize for Flesh which is a masterpiece…
AI, a near miss, and a pleasing history
Books about Australia’s past can easily turn into battlefields, and many commentators expected Tony Abbott’s Australia: A History (HarperCollins, $35)…
Songs of murder, rape and desertion
A century ago, the Orkney poet George Mackay Brown was settling into his first term at Stromness Academy. His schooldays…
The evasions of smalltown Alabama: The Land of Sweet Forever, by Harper Lee, reviewed
Harper Lee’s writing career was brief, but her single novel became one of the most famous in American history. To…
Rory Stewart’s romantic view of Cumbria is wide of the mark
It’s tricky for writers to gather up pieces of old work and collect them in significant literary form. It’s risky…
Peril in Prague: The Secret of Secrets, by Dan Brown, reviewed
Robert Langdon is a symbologist, and that is the meta joke – the only joke – of Dan Brown’s series…
Cosy crime for Christmas: a choice of thrillers
Christmas is prime time for cosy crime and the excellent thriller writer Nicola Upson offers a short, pleasing contribution with…
The little imps who pretended to be poltergeists
It comes as a surprise for anyone assuming that ghosthunters are easily fooled scaredy cats to learn that there was…
The cartographer’s power to decide the fate of millions
I had searched for it for the better part of 20 years. An enormous trove of lost maps, the 800…