In what might be a world first, the Australian parliament has just dealt a death blow to counter-disinformation legislation that threatened to fundamentally reshape the country’s free speech landscape. The bill, which would have created a two-tier system of speech …
Marseille can’t escape its drug gangs
Marseille is making headlines — as usual for the wrong reasons. Back in October, two teenagers were caught up in the deadly gang wars that have long plagued France’s second largest city. The first, aged 14, was arrested for killing …
Winters of Discontent are coming
I was expecting Starmer to be awful. But less than six months into his premiership, his government’s prissy authoritarianism, student-union self-righteousness, and vindictive taxation has plunged Labour from a net favourability rating of +6 on taking power in July to …
The ICC has emboldened Netanyahu
International law has spoken once again. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, are now wanted men. The International Criminal Court has, for the first time in its 22-year history, issued arrest warrants for …
Will black voters forgive the Democrats?
Oakland, California.
Marquise S. sat in the driver’s seat of an old black Honda on Oakland’s Foothill Boulevard with white powder spread out over his knees. A slender young black woman sat in the passenger seat; a young black man …
How Orthodoxy can save Russia’s soul
When Lucy Ash was escorted round the vast and numinous island monastery of Valaam, located in Lake Ladoga near St. Petersburg, she had an intriguing guide: a monk who introduced himself as Father Iosif but spoke fluent English in the …
Assisted dying ignores what it means to be human
Of all people, you might expect humanists to have protecting human life at the core of their ideological DNA. Instead, they are queuing up to plunge in the needle of death. This week, as Parliament prepares to debate the assisted …
The Guardian’s culture of cowardice
“I’m not sorry to be leaving Guardian newspapers. For years now being Jewish, however non-observant, and working for the company has been uncomfortable, at times excruciating…It will be a joy to know that I’m not a part of that anymore.”…
Environmentalists have lost the plot
The sun is the source of energy in “the economy of nature”, writes Robin Wall Kimmerer, red-hot botanist and professional ponderer from the Native American Potawatomi nation. She spends her latest book The Serviceberry, a follow-up to the 2013 sensation …
How mailmen saved rural America
“You have to be a neighbour to have a neighbour.” That’s Mark Jamison’s mantra — and he should know. Until he retired, after all, the 68-year-old was the postmaster in Webster, a small town enveloped by the mist and hollers …
The return of America’s Puritans
Ideology matters far more in the United States than in Europe. Over here, you won’t hear many politicians talking about “this great country of ours” or making pious allusions to God. In Brussels or Wolverhampton, you would simply stare at …
Why the Left always takes the MAGA bait
The current state of the American political discourse is best understood through the lens of the 1987 movie The Princess Bride — or more specifically, one scene therein. It’s the part where Miracle Max is decompensating over the insistence of …
John Prescott’s failed class war
“He’s top class and I’m bottom class,” recalled the late John Prescott of his time serving the drinks to Sir Anthony Eden as a steward on the MV Rangitata. On doctor’s orders, Eden and his wife had embarked on a …
Stonewall and the search for meaning
Is Trans Day of Remembrance being dropped down the memory hole? This time last year, Stonewall was urging followers to observe November 20 as an “important day to honour the lives of our trans siblings who have been taken from …
John Prescott never pulled his punches
“Every leader needs a John Prescott,” Tony Blair liked to say of his deputy. “I couldn’t have made all the changes I made, and needed to make, in the Labour Party without the support of John.”
He was right. One …