Two can play the cancel game
Hoist with their own petards
Let me be clear. One either believes in basic natural justice and procedural fairness protections or one does not. If you…
Now there’s a real state of emergency in Victoria
The extension of Victoria’s State of Emergency powers to the Andrews government is devastating. The State of Emergency will end…
Justice in the internet age
After days of speculation, and mounting media and political pressure on the Prime Minister and his government to act on…
How the MSM has distorted our perceptions
Over the years of travelling around the globe and speaking at all sort of forums, Swedish public health expert, the…
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Sorry, but there’s only one gospel – the Gospel According to Dan
Those who accuse the Victorian Government of trying to remove religion from the public square with their so-called gay conversion…
Mark McGowan, the new Prince Leonard
Keen observers of Australian politics will recall that on January 31 last year, by decree of His Royal Highness, Prince…
Politicians, advice – and advisors
Given the content of this and prior pieces, it is fair to assume that I am a largish consumer of…
Two can play the cancel game
Conservatives, can we all agree to stop apologizing for our politics and beliefs? Can we choose to back ourselves, and…
There’s no equality in equity
It’s hard to keep them all straight, but among the many diktats emitted by the Biden administration during its first days in office,…
Nicola Sturgeon is fighting for her political life
The Alex Salmond inquiry has seen its most remarkable day yet. Three pivotal documents have been released to the Holyrood…
Taxpayers stump up £18,000 for slavery audit
It seems it’s a costly business putting together a historical report. In fact, it took two researchers and a grand…
Trump freezes the 2024 field
Donald Trump is not retiring. He’s not disappearing to live the range life and he has no intentions of remaining…
Xivinity
Imagine the outcry in Australia, America or elsewhere in the West if the state mandated the licensing of religions and…
Prisoner diary
After the long flights from London, via Doha, on Qatar Airways we landed in Brisbane on our way to two…
Lies, damn lies and coronavirus
Australians are an adaptable mob, but we have an intolerance of being treated like the proverbial mushroom, kept in the…
WA Liberals go nuts
I’d never heard of Zak Kirkup until recently. He is the teenage-like leader of the Liberals in Western Australia, soon…
Facebook and friends threaten our freedom
Just two weeks after receiving a request from the shadow minister for health and ageing, Mark Butler, to take ‘appropriate…
Women must lead the fight for equality in sports
What does gender equality as a universal value mean in practice? Where’s the boundary between equality of opportunity and outcome?…
Affairs of staff and state
It’s lucky China didn’t invade Taiwan this week as the government focussed its attention on what it considered to be…
Wuhan: best practice rejected
There used to be a statutory office whose very name struck terror into the hearts of those who feared for…
Anne-Marie Duff
Melbourne was just stirring into public cultural life when the hotel quarantine mishap led to that last alarming lockdown that…
Australian Love Stories: Celebrating love in all its guises at the NPG
The National Portrait Gallery seems to be floundering. That may be unfair but the announcement of the next exhibition left…
The Dig
It was gratifying to see such a quiet and impeccably made film as The Dig make it to independent cinemas…
Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo
Second thoughts are sometimes better thoughts. The NSW government had second thoughts about closing down the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo…
Kiwi Life
For New Zealanders to be losing our democracy may be due to sheer carelessness, ignorance, or even stupidity, not to…
Kiwi Language
Nancy Pelosi succeeded in banning ‘mother’ from appearing in the paperwork of Congress. Now the ANU’s Gender Institute Handbook wants…
Is it time to cancel Sophocles?
Gstaad The sun has returned, the snow is so-so, and exercise has replaced everything, including romance. What a way to…
Dear Mary: How do we stop our friend letting herself in to our house?
Q. Our friend lives far away, but comes to stay at her country place nearby several times a year. Some…
In the land of the blind
Somehow, American culture has got itself into a terrible mess of division and acrimony: elites against mainstream, progressives against conservatives,…
Savage aperçus: Fake Accounts, by Lauren Oyler, reviewed
Lauren Oyler is viral and vicious. A critic with a reputation for pulling no punches, she is known for delivering…
Algeria’s War of Independence still leaves festering wounds, two new novels reveal
In France, even the car horns yelled about Algeria. A five-beat klaxon blast — three short, two long — signalled…
All good friends and jolly good company: life with the Crichel Boys
In the spring of 1945 three men pooled their resources in order to buy Long Crichel House, a former rectory…
Labour of love: producing the perfect loaf
Wheat flour, and the bread made from it, has been a recurring cause of concern for the British for centuries,…
Hellcat on the loose: Samantha Markle rants about Meghan
A while ago, Samantha Markle declared that her forthcoming book would be about ‘the beautiful nuances of our lives’. Was…
Joan Didion’s needle-sharp eye never fails
Most collections of journalism are bad. There are two reasons for this: one is that they are usually incoherent and…
Up close and personal: voices from the Great War, week by week
In the summer of 2014, David Hargreaves was invited by Robert Cottrell, the editor of The Browser, to write a…