Libs stuck in the middle
Trump considers ground invasion to seize enriched uranium from Iran
Speculation out of the US tonight that President Donald Trump is considering an extremely dangerous and complex military operation. In…
Labor backflips on fuel excise as crisis intensifies
Well, well, well… It didn’t even take the Albanese government 24 hours to fold under pressure from the Opposition to…
Victorian Liberals drop Moira Deeming
Weeks ago, The Spectator Australia warned that there was a risk Moira Deeming could be dropped in favour of Indian community…
Angus Taylor calls on Labor to cut fuel excise
After weeks of pretending everything is fine, the government has authorised itself to use emergency powers to manage the fuel supply…
The ghosts of lockdowns past
In a macabre parallel with the Easter celebration, the National Cabinet was resurrected this week, dragged back into life, ostensibly…
The questions that keep us alive
Pesach is the greatest piece of educational theatre ever created. Across the world, on the same night, Jewish families gather…
The ‘Bros’ unite on a scapegoat
There has been renewed interest from researchers and commentators on the so-called manosphere which includes a particular brand of male influencer…
Moira Deeming must move to One Nation
From Macau: The Victorian Liberals have done it again, only this time the farce has played out in under 24…
A new North Korea in the making
The Islamic Republic regime in Iran cuts off internet access to everyone whenever it faces a serious challenge. This is…
Trust, control, and crisis: a tale of two nations
Author’s Note: For my doctoral thesis, I was supposed to design an open‑source, long‑term rapid response mechanism at an Australian…
You cannot reform a snake: venom is in its DNA
The atmosphere at CPAC 2026 in Grapevine (Dallas), Texas – the annual convention of the MAGA flagbearers – was not…
The war in Iran isn’t about oil, it’s about sulphur…
Whilst Adolf Hitler was adept at blaming everything and everyone except himself for the problems of war, he did make…
Wisdom, truth, and joy
In Zoroaster’s thought, the human being is not passive or bound by fate, but a conscious and responsible agent who…
What did I miss?
This week turned out to be an Albanese Method™ masterclass. If there’s one superpower our Prime Minister possesses, it’s the…
Celebrate 2038: in twelve years, Australia turns 250
In 2038, Australia will mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of Australia. It is now time to start preparing…
Australia’s fuel crisis: political incompetence, not Iran
The severity of the global fuel crisis hitting Australia – that may well reverberate for years to come – is…
Shabbat Shalom: to those who run towards the fire
There is a line I have found myself returning to this week, watching events unfold in different corners of the…
Care factor ‘zero’ for striking ABC staffers
More than one thousand ABC journalists and staff walked off the job this week as the latest three-year enterprise bargaining…
ABC staff chuck a tantrum while taxpayers foot the bill
From Hong Kong: While the rest of Australia is doing it tough under Labor’s cost-of-living catastrophe, state-owned media, the ABC,…
Behind the Manosphere: the vacuum we won’t fill
The rules of the manosphere are simple: get rich, get fit, get girls. Just as the rules are simple, so…
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner loses again – A victory for free speech | Celine Baumgarten S3 Ep 18
Celine Baumgarten (Celine Against the Machine) has celebrated her SECOND victory against the eSafety Commissioner. This wasn’t only a personal…
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? | Joel Gilbert S3 Ep 17
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? I’m joined by Joel Gilbert to discuss the genius of humour…
Digital tyranny or ‘child safety’? 😵 & the bitcoin revolution | Efrat Fenigson S3 Ep 16
When Australia’s Under 16 social media ban started locking adult political writers out of #Substack – it was just the…
Move over Saint Jacinda
The progressive mob needs heroes. People they can admire, people who demonstrate their seeming worthiness through words and actions. We…
Business/Robbery, etc
For the Liberal party, 1996 and 2026 are, depressingly, much further apart than just in years. Survival, let alone a…
Hey Dunning and Kruger, have you met Chris Bowen?
In 1999, psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger described a phenomenon that has become depressingly observable. Those least capable of…
We need real US-style federalism
I have written before about how broken Australia’s federalist constitutional arrangements are. They were broken by over a century of…
Libs stuck in the middle
‘Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.’ It…
Trump’s selfless war
It’s been a real hoot watching commentators and pundits from both sides of the fence tying themselves in knots trying…
Bot in my backyard
A popular 1960s superhero comic book series which never made it to the big screen, for reasons which will become…
Lawson, Lakemba and Labor
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas was always going to win last Saturday’s state election, so many die-hard political junkies didn’t…
The markets have stopped listening to Donald Trump
Over the last 24 hours, President Trump has come up with a bewildering series of “solutions” to the global oil…
Israel needs to rethink its relationship with Christians
Sometimes it’s a wonder Israel can stand with all the self-inflicted gunshot wounds in its feet. Israeli police placed their…
AI didn’t write my book
It’s been a rather unusual month. In the last four weeks, I’ve gone from being renamed ‘Matt Badloss’, after finishing…
The three options facing Trump in Iran
As Trump contemplates a ground operation in Iran, he will be reckoning with the ghosts of previous western “excursions” in…
Britain should brace itself for a small boat surge
According to a report in the French press today, the border between France and the United Kingdom is ‘at risk…
Is therapy culture to blame for the manosphere?
There’s a moment in Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere where Theroux asks one of Andrew Tate’s protégés a simple question: why…
The illusion and delusion of Matt Goodwin
Sometimes, a nickname comes along so excellently unkind that you know it’s going to stick. One such is “MattGPT” – which will,…
Why Gen-Z turned back to Christianity
Secularists are cock-a-hoop at the news that the “Quiet Revival” in British Christianity may just be a thing of nought.…
Why modern ‘comedians’ like Romesh Ranganathan aren’t funny
It’s funny that the George Orwell statue outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House has a quote etched nearby from a proposed…
Why is Britain dragging its feet at giving this Hong Kong activist citizenship?
Almost six years ago, within hours of the imposition of a draconian National Security Law by Beijing on Hong Kong,…
Why smartphones warp war
The Secretary of War is the face of America’s campaign against Iran. “War is hell, and always will be,” Pete…
What we know about the Derby car incident
Counter-terrorism officers are investigating after a car crashed into pedestrians in Derby city centre last night. At least seven people…
The row over English becoming an official language of New Zealand
Parliamentarians in New Zealand have been limbering up for an oddly unedifying debate over what ought to be the most…
What they don’t tell you about Christmas in New Zealand
‘I still think New Zealand the most beautiful country I have ever seen,’ Agatha Christie marvelled in 1922. Evidently she’s…
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’…
‘We’ll wake up on 8 May and realise that the Conservative party’s gone’: Inside Reform’s plan to devour the Tories
A daily beauty
It’s fascinating to see that Sharmill are presenting a new Othello from London’s Haymarket from 28 March with David Harewood…
A versatile and virtuouso figure
Well, the Oscars have come and gone and we tend only to remember the anomalies. Julie Andrews winning the Oscar…
Uncanny mutations
Isn’t it odd the way we can start watching a streamer in absolute disgusted disbelief only to discover that we’re…
That glimpse of grandeur
The death of Robert Duvall the other week was a reminder of how long ago some of our cultural landmarks…
Tales of quiet intensity: The News from Dublin, by Colm Toibin, reviewed
Colm Toibin is a master of understatement, his work characterised by great emotional intelligence coupled with redoubtable restraint. This is…
Two Tokyo misfits: Hooked, by Asako Yuzuki, reviewed
Following the enormous success of Butter’s English translation in 2024, it seemed inevitable that another of Asako Yuzuki’s novels would…
James Baldwin – dogged by painful uncertainties throughout life
James Baldwin, like many American novelists before him, F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Dos Passos included, spent his formative years…
The misery of working with Chuck Berry
In Ian Leslie’s John & Paul, the creative relationship between the titular Beatles is treated as a platonic love story.…
The mystery of what makes us special remains unsolved
Consciousness is thought by many to define what it is to be human. We know that animals are conscious to…
Dark family secrets: Repetition, by Vigdis Hjorth, reviewed
‘Back then, of course, I didn’t know my parents were locked into an impossibility even greater than mine. That I…
The ‘ecocide’ that is Canada’s shame
For a fortnight, four women have been combing through a 30-metre forest plot with infinite care. They have noted the…
No Hungarian rhapsody: Lázár, by Nelio Biedermann, reviewed
Few first novels, let alone literary debuts in translation from German, arrive with quite so many plaudits – or better…