Labor: funding failure with another $25 million to the Palestinian Authority
The AusAlert conspiracy
News of the AusAlert conspiracy resulted in a head-tilt from me. To be honest, I was not aware it was…
Mainstream media deserves its fate on the scrap heap of history
Well, that was an interesting week in politics. I’m disgusted but not surprised by the media storm that deleted all…
Pauline Hanson offers Angus Taylor support to stop ISIS fighters returning
According to Credlin on Sky News Australia, Pauline Hanson has written to Angus Taylor offering One Nation support for any legislation…
Victoria … now what?
Federal Liberal Party president Tony Abbott has emerged to back the disendorsement of Moira Deeming. The Victorian Liberal Party made…
Crimson Conservatism
For as long as I can remember, I have been at odds with myself. I am disabled, yet I do…
The legal right to disobey unjust law
In an age of social chaos and moral confusion, as in times of tyrannical government, there will be a desperate…
Remembering Ithaca
The temptation to review The Odyssey is strong. Stronger still is the temptation to wail about the casting, the incorporation…
What 20 One Nation converts told me
Based on all available polling, it seems that if an election were held today, somewhere close to a quarter of…
Preserving the Institutions of Western Civilisation in the Age of Populism
The following is a speech delivered by the Shadow Minister of Defence, Liberal Senator James Paterson, at the Ramsay Centre.…
What did I miss?
Those who allow Labor press releases to act as their sole source of truth wouldn’t imagine that Australians are caught…
Labor: funding failure with another $25 million to the Palestinian Authority
Foreign Minister Penny Wong insists Australia’s foreign policy is guided by international law, moderation, and the pursuit of peace. Yet…
Grifters, spivs, and thieves
It’s the Labor Party’s National Conference in Adelaide at the moment. I was hoping to be invited to MC the…
A Coup-ee from Canberra
Recent discussion at the Labor National Conference has revived debate about an Australian republic. Much of that debate focuses on…
Multiculturalism is a crisis of self
Just as a person without convictions is easily swayed to differing and conflicting positions, so is a country without convictions.…
The Odyssey: the film that launched a thousand tweets
Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey has attracted a lot of attention for its DEI casting. Elon Musk is especially aggrieved and taken…
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the ABC, and the Celebration Parallax
Earlier this month on Insiders, Patricia Karvelas told the nation that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ‘wants to make all those…
Bronze statues are not threatening Australia’s future
If intelligence could be measured in bronze, some of the people campaigning to tear down Australia’s colonial statues would struggle…
The standard you walk past
Drive through your own suburb this Sunday. Look around. A shopping trolley on its side. A tag on a fence…
Vikki Campion’s warning: Mess with Barnaby and meet your match
People have been bagging out Barnaby Joyce for rousing on his dog while doing an interview on an iPhone on…
Australian ‘gun’ culture?
Why are some humans so fascinated by guns? Turn on the TV and it’s everywhere. The cultural might of the…
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…
Plumbing vs climate change
We had the plumber in the other day, and were grateful that he even turned up. Although he charged us…
Who you gonna trust, baby?
If you were asked to boil down today’s Australian and British right-of-centre politics to one short question, this would be…
A constitution to rule them all
Last week was about scrutiny, with Barnaby Joyce declining, as One Nation’s Treasury spokesman, to commit to costing One Nation’s…
The lessons our schools need to teach
Earlier this month, America marked the 250th birthday of its Declaration of Independence. This anniversary should also matter to Australians.…
The coming AI bust
Nearly 200 economists including 15 Nobel laureates and tech leaders this month issued a statement that warned artificial intelligence poses…
Racketeering on an industrial scale
When the 50th anniversary ALP national conference kicks off in Adelaide this week, Labor’s ties to the trade union movement…
The monetisation of murder
Invited to address a rally in defence of Beijing’s victims on a freezing day in Sydney, I referred to media…
Cool it, lefties, we all need air con
This summer, Europe has experienced a wave of record-breaking temperatures. Southern France hit 44 degrees Celsius. Naturally, the French took…
I invented Nixonmaxxing
The kids call it ‘Nixonmaxxing,’ and I invented it 30 years ago. ‘I think that his historical record is enjoying…
Is Elon Musk wrong about Britain and civil war?
Do you think that Britain is heading towards civil war? If you spend too much time in certain nooks on…
Andy Burnham is a joke
Can I shock you? I like Andy Burnham. Not in a gay way. More that, when he comes on the…
We sacrifice the humanities at our peril
Another month, another of our great universities making brutal cuts. At Exeter (motto: lucem sequimur, ‘we follow the light’) over 500…
Why I’ve given up on supermarkets
Three years ago, I embarked on a personal project that has brought about a quiet revolution in my cooking and…
‘Goy’ and ‘goyim’ are not pejorative terms
The words goy and goyim are thrown around by Jews and non-Jews to mean very different things and to convey…
The media will miss Trump when he’s gone
Hats off to President Trump! At the conclusion of his speech to the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump donned…
Why the bus £2 price cap might just pay off for Burnham
Andy Burnham has announced a reduction in the cap on English bus fares, down from Starmer’s £3. Remarkably, he might…
I’m so glad that Big Ange is back
Big Ange is back. From a sketchwriter’s point of view I have to say that this is marvellous news. Rayner…
How Britain’s imperial history affects diplomacy today
If, as the joke goes, war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography, then sport is arguably His way of…
The office politics behind Tokyo’s hairy leg panic
As Tokyoites swelter in 95-degree heat and 80 per cent humidity – and companies are forced to cut back on the…
Therapy speak is turning us into sissies
As one who’s always been keen on putting their hand up and admitting to their faults (a perverse form of…
A New Zealand republic in Jacinda Ardern’s lifetime?
New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, believes the nation will become a republic within her lifetime. We have heard…
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…
Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is a triumph
High Antipodean
The death of that fabled cricketer Sir Garfield Sobers – one of the greatest all-rounders who ever lived – is…
A Treasury on YouTube
It’s strange how much we take for granted the world we inherit, which is available to us on YouTube for…
To be trans Hamlet or not to be
Is there something strange about seeing a great comedian who identifies as a trans woman do a solo Hamlet, the…
Tip-Toeing in Manchester
The world knows that Andy Burnham, the ‘King from the North’, was a very successful mayor of Manchester. There have…
Aussie life
In interesting news from the fickle world of celebrities, American-Albanian singer Dua Lipa, whose repertoire includes but is not limited…
Language
Writing in the Daily Telegraph James Morrow pointed out that the Albanese government suffers from ‘tall poppy syndrome’– dividing the…
Is Charles Richmond the man to shake up British racing?
Yay! It’s Glorious Goodwood next week. Which reminds me that the Richmond family were breeding and racing horses when George…
Will my French guests get revenge for Agincourt?
The French couple did not speak much English so I rattled on in my best French, thinking I was doing…
Unlucky break: All In, by Claire Powell, reviewed
Claire Powell’s first novel, At the Table (2022), delineated a year in the life of the Maguire family from south…
New York crime caper: Cool Machine, by Colson Whitehead, reviewed
Cool Machine, the final novel in Colson Whitehead’s Harlem trilogy (following Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto), is another tour de…
Why spiders deserve our respect, not fear or disgust
I had not thought much about spiders until I read Maria Tatar’s Arachnomania; now I can think of little else.…
Adolescent anxieties: Schoolgirl, by Osamu Dazai, reviewed
In June 1948, the writer Osamu Dazai and his last love, Tomie Yamazaki, drowned themselves in the Tamagawa Aqueduct near…
When Mum went marching with the EDL
Nicola Wilding is a documentary film producer, whose family was originally rural working class. Aged 60, her mother, Sandra, prompted…
Why Cicero’s life and times have never seemed more relevant
How should we think about Cicero? He was the orator who claimed that he did his best to save the…
Will any lone fanatic soon be capable of bioterrorism?
In the summer of 2020, while the country was between ‘waves’ of Covid, Dominic Cummings convened a meeting at my…
An alternative Paris: Château Rouge, by Amit Chaudhuri, reviewed
Nearly ten years ago, the author, critic and classical Indian musician Amit Chaudhuri took up a visiting fellowship in Paris.…
