The Spectator’s new owner – and new era
A Harris Presidency: no cackling matter
President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation made a most curious comment about the forthcoming American election. He indicated that…
Trump’s faith advisor and emissary for freedom
Dr Ben Carson is stepping out of retirement and into a religious freedom advisory role for Donald Trump’s 2024 re-run.…
From Andrew Neil, Chairman of The Spectator
Below is Andrew Neil’s sad but superb letter of resignation from The Spectator. Andrew is a legend of the media…
Lacking moral clarity
A few prominent medical professionals latched on to an urgent call to action that was released by the organisation Physicians…
The conservative student who challenged university wokeness
What a journey my university experience has been… Never would I have thought that this is what university would look…
The RBA is doing its job, so don’t shoot the messenger
People love to hate the RBA at the moment. Along with unnecessarily high energy and grocery bills, mortgage repayments are…
Victorian Greens cooking over gas backflip
It was always a gamble to see how long Victoria’s proposed ban on gas cooktops would last. After all, beautiful,…
The rise of social regulations
The great surge in Australian productivity took place in two decades during the early years of the present century. It…
Dreams and schemes of electric vandals
Speaking about electricity, I’d like to apologise for South Australia as we have been free-riding for a long time on…
Foreign policy realism
The Liberal International Order (LIO) is no more. The days of intervening in foreign lands to protect ‘democracy’ is almost…
Is the Victorian building industry fixable?
The reluctance to make complaints because of fear of reprisal is the obvious headline grab from the Interim Report into…
Orwellian double-speak on international student caps
Australia, and other Western nations, long ago entered an Orwellian era where ‘double-speak’ is becoming increasingly common in politics. It’s…
To do or not to do
Here’s a question for readers. Do you think more changes to Britain will have been achieved by thirteen years of…
WHO will strike again
In these pages last year your correspondent wrote about a document published by the Health Department of Western Australia that,…
Victoria – the Pothole State
In recent weeks, I have been driving around Melbourne much more than I usually do. As a result, I have…
Greens poisonous alchemy
How do you make a wealthy and democratic country into a poor and despotic one? One Australian Greens policy at…
The next recession
Paul Keating’s ‘recession we had to have’ of 1990 to 1991 extended for four quarters, over which time output shrank…
Donkey of desires
In 1842 as angry hordes were preparing to savage the British occupiers of Kabul, Afghan tribal leader, Abdullah Khan Achakzai,…
Demise of the old Dems
Political parties can change over time and morph into a new entity whilst retaining their outward appearance. The transition can…
The Kennedy factor
An hilarious new US campaign ad, styled as a drug ad complete with symptoms, side-effects, testimonials and a gravely concerned…
Keir Starmer’s prisoner endorsement
Happy prisoner release day, one and all! Today’s move to let out the lags is all part of the Ministry…
Does Starmer know what to do with the unions?
Before coming into government, Keir Starmer would use his battles with the unions, particularly Unite, as a way of defining…
The terror of Australia’s random coffee attack
A young mother, picnicking with friends in a Brisbane park, shouldn’t now be praying for the recovery of her nine-month-old…
Can Labour get young people back to work?
The UK still looks set to get another interest rate cut (or two) by the end of the year, but…
How does New Zealand solve a problem like China?
New Zealand’s most important trading partner is also the nation’s biggest security headache, according to a new risk-assessment report produced…
Why are so many young people abandoning New Zealand?
Heading to the UK is a longstanding rite of cultural passage for many Kiwis. People like my youngest son, who…
Kiwi life
New Zealand in crisis Given the destruction the previous Labour government inflicted on this country, and the damage caused by…
New Zealand’s carbon sequestration problem
Ongoing concern about climate change has fuelled debate about the part carbon sequestration might play in reducing New Zealand’s net…
Xi speech warrior: Elon Musk’s love affair with China
Purring with cynical affection
It’s one of those weird paradoxes of history that we think of the Elizabethan era as the zenith of our…
Zany streak of British humour
The fact that Kip Williams is leaving the Sydney Theatre Company to stage The Picture of Dorian Gray with Sarah…
A man of incomparable beauty
It was sad to see that great French actor Alain Delon had died the other day. He was a man…
The power of surprise
You would think that Andrew Bovell, the man who wrote Lantana, would not be subject to the petty indignities of…
Nordic dream or nightmare?: The Mark, by Frida Isberg, reviewed
Imagine a society, a high-minded psychologist tells his curmudgeonly father, ‘in which people are like cars. They have to go…
More about my mother: Elaine, by Will Self, reviewed
Inspired by his late mother’s diaries, Will Self’s fictionalised Elaine covers just over a year in the life of its…
A world history of morality is maddeningly optimistic
The memory of Tsutomu Yamaguchi will be with me for some time. Though wounded, he survived the Hiroshima atom bomb…
Uncomfortable truths about the siege of Leningrad
Even before the 872-day long siege ended, both survivors and onlookers had already begun to refer to Leningrad – formerly…
A necklace for the Empress Josephine: The Glassmaker, by Tracy Chevalier, reviewed
The latest book from Tracy Chevalier, author of 11 novels, including the bestselling Girl with a Pearl Earring, tells the…
What prompted Vivien Leigh’s dark journey into madness?
‘Vivien was barking mad from the word go,’ Laurence Olivier reflected in later life, and Lyndsy Spence’s biography would fully…
The spy with the bullet-proof Rolls-Royce
‘Biffy’ Dunderdale (1899-1991) was a legend in his own lifetime within MI6. Born in Odessa to an Austrian countess and…
We’ll never know what treasures the Tudor Reformation robbed us of
In 1693, quarrymen working near Caerleon, outside Newport in Wales, uncovered an alabaster sculpture of a figure they did not…