The aspiration deficit
Pure, bloody-minded politics
One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson slammed the Albanese government on X this afternoon over a long-running dispute about staff cuts.…
We need to talk about Stafford
On the surface, the Queensland by-election of Stafford may seem unremarkable. A Labor safe seat was held by Labor after…
Time to stash cash under the bed?
‘I wonder how many of you have savings locked away in the banking system where you think it’s safe? Well,…
Taxpayers despair at forking out for ISIS brides
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor offered two numbers that represent taxpayer-funded support. Pensioners: $31,309 ISIS Brides: $46,889 Taylor presented these figures…
The aspiration deficit
Deception works best when it appeals to the victim’s deepest anxieties. The Trojan Horse promised divine protection to a profoundly…
What did I miss?
Small businesses copped Labor’s socialist king-hit. These days they’re called a ‘coward punch’ which is fitting, because what the Treasurer…
No wonder men are opting out
The warning signs have been there for decades. Back in 1983, American author Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a powerful book –…
The address from the Monaro
Watching Angus Taylor’s response to the Budget on Thursday night, many would have wondered why his policy framework of lowering…
The illusion of ceasefire
The United States recently extended the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire for another 45 days, even as Hezbollah continued low-level attacks and maintained…
43 million by 2100 is a choice, not destiny
Australia’s rapid population growth is often linked to the sheer size of Asia’s population. Look how many people there are…
In search of a healthy majority?
Most political commentary in the aftermath of the recent UK local and devolved elections has, understandably, focused on the Labour…
We have a liar in the Lodge
We’ve heard an awful lot on the past few days about lies, about Labor’s lies, and about the Prime Minister…
Angus Taylor’s Budget Reply follows One Nation’s lead
On Thursday night, Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor delivered the Opposition’s Budget Reply, focusing on what he termed ‘generational tax reform’…
An economy up in smoke
Given the state of our economy, we must give greater scope to the market despite the government taxing and spending.…
A future, betrayed in Australia
Almost 12 years ago to the day, Joe Hockey delivered what became an infamous speech in Australian political history: ‘We…
Victoria, the Anchor Man State
In iconic comedy Anchorman, Ron Burgundy asks louche reporter Brian Fantana which cologne he intends to wear. Swinging open the…
The one word missing from the budget
Yesterday’s Budget shows what a lightweight political class we have. Jim Chalmers sombrely summoned the clouds of war as his…
We had, ‘stop the boats’. Now let’s ‘stop the planes’
The federal Budget papers reveal that Australia will admit 765,000 new migrants in the next three years. This figure does…
Dancing backwards in high heels
My wife and I recently experienced a production of Suzie Miller’s acclaimed one-woman play, RBG: Of Many, One. We knew…
It’s time for the LNP to fight the Culture Wars
Australian politics has become a battlefield of byelections. Last weekend, the NSW Farrer byelection – won by One Nation’s David…
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…
Brown study
It is with a tone of despair, but some optimism, that I have been cogitating on the result of the…
Bungling bureaucrats
Two senior executives in the financial services industry are invited by the Treasury to provide some confidential technical advice on…
Thirty years boiling the frog
Simon Benson wrote in the Australian this week that the Liberal party’s collapse in Farrer had been ‘rapid and spectacular’.…
Enlightenment is not a dirty word
Australia stands at a critical inflection point, with a defining choice to be made. The liberal order is under assault.…
Nigel and Pauline
Well, it wasn’t a great week for the public broadcasters in Britain and here in Australia. I’m talking about the…
Treasurer, you’re no Keating
Other than Malcolm Turnbull, no retired Australian politician has devoted quite so much energy to the high art of the…
The coming Farage revolution
Has there ever been such a case of political buyer’s remorse? At Britain’s last general election less than two years…
His word is his junk bond
‘My word is my bond,’ said a freshly minted Prime Minister Albanese in July 2022. After this week’s budget, his…
Is TikTok slop to blame for the fertility crisis?
Highly effective campaigning from parents and parliamentarians has forced the government to agree to introduce age restrictions for under 16s…
Keir Starmer is an even worse PM than Boris Johnson
Remember when Sir Keir Starmer was sold to us as, effectively, the anti-Boris? Where Boris was slapdash, Keir would be…
‘Save Chagos’ push launched in Lords
It is just over four weeks since the government was forced to pause its attempted handover of the Chagos Islands,…
Why was Starmer afraid of the Unite the Kingdom rally?
Perhaps the strangest thing about the Unite the Kingdom rally was just how unremarkable it felt. There were no mass…
Sunday shows round-up: Nandy says Labour leadership speculation is ‘froth and nonsense’
Lisa Nandy: Labour leadership speculation is ‘froth and nonsense’ Wes Streeting has resigned as health secretary, and declared that he…
Why Britain’s mobile download speeds are worse than Peru’s
The other month I was on a train in London, on a business call with a client in Kampala, Uganda.…
Why the public rejected anti-Israel theatrics at Eurovision
There’s a compelling explanation as to why Israel soared above the din of geopolitical protest to power into second place…
The Moscow-Beijing-Pyongyang axis is here to stay
On Donald Trump’s sojourn to China – the first visit by a US president in almost a decade – North…
Britain should stop demonising Albania
At a formal dinner recently, an aristocratic English lady asked about my experience of the UK. I told her I…
The sad death of Poets’ Corner
If there is such a thing as a home for Britain’s national story, it might be found in Westminster Abbey.…
America has a serious Chinese spying problem
President Donald Trump struck a conciliatory tone during his trip to China. He returned from his Beijing summit with Xi…
What Makerfield makes of Burnham
It’s the day after Josh Simons stepped down as MP and every journalist and their mum is in Makerfield, where…
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’…
Things can always get worse
A masterpiece of economy
There’s something very odd about the fuss that’s been made about David Szalay who won the Booker a few months…
The performance of her career
It’s odd, isn’t it, the uncanny relationship between success and achievement. Just the other night the Melbourne Theatre Company had…
Skill of the characterisation
Yasmina Reza is one of the most dazzling playwrights alive because she creates sweepingly funny bits of theatre (masterfully translated…
Scrupulous fidelity
Isn’t it fascinating how much we adapt works of literature? 150 years ago someone would have had a fair chance…
The tragedy of Sir Walter Ralegh’s impossible quest
I remember little of my two years at boarding school, where I arrived aged eight, apart from the cloaks. Red,…
Love and loneliness in the Outer Hebrides: John of John, by Douglas Stuart, reviewed
For his third novel, Douglas Stuart moves north from the Glasgow tenements of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo to the…
Were the lies we told to combat communism so shameful?
This, we might imagine, is the Age of the Fake. AI videos; TikTok fascists; the Joycean mind-fragments of a US…
Mourning becomes Siri Hustvedt
At 6.58 p.m. on 30 April 2024, Siri Hustvedt’s husband of 43 years, the novelist Paul Auster, died of cancer…
The movie brats who changed popular cinema
For some people it’s Star Wars; for others it’s Jaws or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. For me not…
Paw prints through the ages: a stunning visual history of man’s best friend
Inspiring, educational, moving, sometimes distressing, this is a riveting visual history of man’s best friend. Thomas Laqueur, from a German…
The good old bad old days: Prestige Drama, by Seamas O’Reilly, reviewed
Set in present-day Derry, Seamas O’Reilly’s Prestige Drama centres on the filming of a television series set in the 1980s.…
Does a propensity for crime depend on one’s DNA?
This book begins strangely. Kathryn Paige Harden and her man Travis go off into the Texas desert to take some…