The news this week that two people had tried to burn down Finchley Reform Synagogue in London wasn’t even surprising. Just a few weeks ago, ambulances operated by a Jewish volunteer organisation were firebombed and destroyed. In Manchester, a synagogue was attacked on Yom Kippur, leaving two people dead. Over the last couple of years, there have been ...
Immanuel Kant, who was born on 22 April 1722, is perhaps best known for two things: writing The Critique of Pure Reason (1781) – one of the most important and most difficult books in Western philosophy, and for being a man of such clinical regularity that the residents of his native Königsberg in East Prussia (present-day Kaliningrad) would set their ...
In the 19th century, the geographer and explorer David Livingstone was scathing of what he described as ‘easy chair geographers’ – authors and mapmakers who produced maps and treatises about the non-European world without ever leaving their learned society or personal office.
Donald Trump is a latter-day armchair geographer. Or judging by photographs ...
The best time to visit Provence, I always advise when asked, is in the spring before the scorching heat and summer crowds.
I have been spending time in the south of France since the early 1990s. Provence was fashionable in those days. Peter Mayle’s massively successful book, A Year in Provence, inspired thousands to pull up stakes and move to southern ...
The news that the original Oxfam bookshop on St Giles in Oxford is not to close is not just a relief, but a rare victory in the ongoing battles between town and gown in the city. The building’s owners, Regent’s Park College, had attempted to take back the relatively modest space that the bookshop occupies and turn it into a common room for graduate ...
Many governments are suddenly realising that economies do not operate on sunbeams and zephyrs.
This is less so for the ossified EU bureaucracy, which is preparing a ‘catalogue’ of energy-saving and low-carbon investments (to replace oil/gas), including smart-grid upgrades incentivises for better renewable integration.
Germany, however, is going ...
The Liberal Party could not be more rattled by the rise of One Nation and the speech by Angus Taylor earlier this month made this very clear.
The results in South Australia demonstrated that the demise of the Liberal Party and rise of One Nation isn’t just a polling phenomenon, it’s the reality at the ballot box as well. By most metrics, we comfortably ...
Three justices of the New South Wales Court of Appeal struck down the Minns government’s law enabling the blanket banning of protest marches on Thursday, 17 April 2026, describing the law as a “blunt tool”. And as activist groups and a stella legal team saw the unconstitutional regime torn down, the analogy of a blunt tool certainly lent itself to many ...
Making time to prepare to host the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has not been easy. Presently I’m flying back to New York, where I live, on a red-eye after a show in Las Vegas. My wife and five kids, all under the age of ten, are at home waiting for me. On average, I have one media appearance every day and a half between now and then. I’m not ...
The Federal Court has denied Australian citizen Dan Duggan’s appeal of former attorney general Mark Dreyfus’ 2024 decision to greenlight his extradition to the US on 2017 charges alleging he illegally trained Chinese military pilots. And while it’s understood the Trump White House has been sniffing around about getting its hands on him, our prime ...
I have just been contacted by a source who knows much more about what happened with Peter Mandelson’s vetting. It supports the case that I made in my summary of the case last night and Sam Coates made in his thread yesterday that the crucial decision was Keir Starmer’s political decision to appoint him. In essence, Oliver Robbins – the top civil ...
The news this week that two people had tried to burn down Finchley Reform Synagogue in London wasn’t even surprising. Just a few weeks ago, ambulances operated by a Jewish volunteer organisation were firebombed and destroyed. In Manchester, a synagogue was attacked on Yom Kippur, leaving two people dead. Over the last couple of years, there have been ...
Immanuel Kant, who was born on 22 April 1722, is perhaps best known for two things: writing The Critique of Pure Reason (1781) – one of the most important and most difficult books in Western philosophy, and for being a man of such clinical regularity that the residents of his native Königsberg in East Prussia (present-day Kaliningrad) would set their ...
In the 19th century, the geographer and explorer David Livingstone was scathing of what he described as ‘easy chair geographers’ – authors and mapmakers who produced maps and treatises about the non-European world without ever leaving their learned society or personal office.
Donald Trump is a latter-day armchair geographer. Or judging by photographs ...
The best time to visit Provence, I always advise when asked, is in the spring before the scorching heat and summer crowds.
I have been spending time in the south of France since the early 1990s. Provence was fashionable in those days. Peter Mayle’s massively successful book, A Year in Provence, inspired thousands to pull up stakes and move to southern ...
The news that the original Oxfam bookshop on St Giles in Oxford is not to close is not just a relief, but a rare victory in the ongoing battles between town and gown in the city. The building’s owners, Regent’s Park College, had attempted to take back the relatively modest space that the bookshop occupies and turn it into a common room for graduate ...
Many governments are suddenly realising that economies do not operate on sunbeams and zephyrs.
This is less so for the ossified EU bureaucracy, which is preparing a ‘catalogue’ of energy-saving and low-carbon investments (to replace oil/gas), including smart-grid upgrades incentivises for better renewable integration.
Germany, however, is going ...
The Liberal Party could not be more rattled by the rise of One Nation and the speech by Angus Taylor earlier this month made this very clear.
The results in South Australia demonstrated that the demise of the Liberal Party and rise of One Nation isn’t just a polling phenomenon, it’s the reality at the ballot box as well. By most metrics, we comfortably ...
Three justices of the New South Wales Court of Appeal struck down the Minns government’s law enabling the blanket banning of protest marches on Thursday, 17 April 2026, describing the law as a “blunt tool”. And as activist groups and a stella legal team saw the unconstitutional regime torn down, the analogy of a blunt tool certainly lent itself to many ...
Making time to prepare to host the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has not been easy. Presently I’m flying back to New York, where I live, on a red-eye after a show in Las Vegas. My wife and five kids, all under the age of ten, are at home waiting for me. On average, I have one media appearance every day and a half between now and then. I’m not ...
The Federal Court has denied Australian citizen Dan Duggan’s appeal of former attorney general Mark Dreyfus’ 2024 decision to greenlight his extradition to the US on 2017 charges alleging he illegally trained Chinese military pilots. And while it’s understood the Trump White House has been sniffing around about getting its hands on him, our prime ...
I have just been contacted by a source who knows much more about what happened with Peter Mandelson’s vetting. It supports the case that I made in my summary of the case last night and Sam Coates made in his thread yesterday that the crucial decision was Keir Starmer’s political decision to appoint him. In essence, Oliver Robbins – the top civil ...
