Australia
Boris must stand up to farmers – and back the Australia trade deal
Farms will be devastated. The countryside will be ruined. And we will all be forced to eat weird food that…
Britain’s vaccine success was supposed to lead to freedom. What happened?
Britain’s vaccine success was supposed to lead to freedom. What happened?
Why is New Zealand afraid of criticising China?
It is becoming harder and harder to ignore China’s aggressive behaviour. As I say in the magazine this week, China…
This fabulous play is like a Chekhov classic: The One Day in the Year reviewed
The One Day In the Year is an Australian drama about the annual commemoration of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.…
Facebook has called the Australian media’s bluff
In 2021, it’s not uncommon to hope that everyone involved in an argument can lose, or to suspect that pretty…
I’m living in a country that won’t let me out
Anyone who’s been through customs Down Under isn’t surprised by the region’s OTT response to Covid. Having been X-rayed before…
Why are trans activists and a Melbourne bookstore trying to cancel me?
Imagine my surprise to wake up this morning to be told that Readings book store in Melbourne had posted an…
Isolation nation: how Australia is dealing with its pandemic
At 6.20 p.m. on Friday evening, Scarborough Beach, an oceanside suburb of Perth, looked like it always does: families picnicked…
Australian border closures would work for Britain. Here’s why
Closing the borders worked Down Under. Could it work here?
The human costs of an ‘Australian-style’ quarantine system
Richard Curtis’ iconic Love Actually airport scenes may fall on the wrong side of saccharine, but they capture something of…
Could the Australian approach to Covid work in Britain?
The government’s most important economic policy is its vaccination programme. The speed at which people are immunised will determine when…
The burden of guilt: The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, by Richard Flanagan, reviewed
Thanks to the Booker Prize, Richard Flanagan is probably the only Tasmanian novelist British readers are likely to have heard…
Transport to Australia was the saving of Carmen Callil’s family
If 2020 has given us something to talk about other than Covid, it’s been history — and, more precisely, to…
The case for Chinese reparations
It is time we started to talk about reparations. I am not of course referring to the demands made by…
Twitter is in China’s pocket
Twitter has been quick on the draw when responding to tweets by President Trump in the last month, as he…
It isn’t always easy to give money away
I always felt sorry for my father, then president of a chronically strapped educational institution, for having ceaselessly to approach…
Forlorn Plorn: The Dickens Boy, by Thomas Keneally, reviewed
Parents are always terrified of bad family history repeating itself. Prince Albert dreaded his son Bertie turning into a roué…
Hugging China hasn’t done us any favours
Like nearly everything named a ‘scandal’, ‘affair’ or given the post-fix ‘gate’, almost nobody now remembers the Dalai Lama affair.…
Not merely funny but somehow also joyous: Sky One's Brassic reviewed
Danny Brocklehurst, the scriptwriter for Sky One’s Brassic, used to work for Shameless in its glory days — although if…
The Amazon Prime doc that will convert anyone to cricket
Imagine rooting for the Australian cricket team. If you’re Scottish, Welsh or Irish — or Australian obviously — it might…
Portrait of the week: Crisis in Iran, fires in Australia and Manchester rapist jailed
Home Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, who had not been told in advance of America’s killing in Iraq of Qassem…
Fight fire with fire: controlled burning could have protected Australia
Sydney By modern standards, my grandfather would probably be considered an environmental criminal. To clear land for his farmhouse in…
Is the patriarchy as all-powerful as it’s cracked up to be? The Baby Has Landed reviewed
Anybody who watched the opening episode of The Baby Has Landed (BBC2, Wednesday) might have found themselves wondering if the…
Portrait of the week: Farage’s climbdown, Yorkshire’s floods and Australia’s fires
Home Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit party, climbed down from his resolution to field 600 candidates in the…
![Angourie Rice, who stars in Bruce Beresford’s 2018 film Ladies in Black [Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/26Octhighlife.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
The most uplifting film ever made
New York Should art mirror the world as it is, or does an artist fail the public if the…
