Tom Switzer 
A slow-motion car crash
A rule of so-called quality journalism is that one should never use clichés. But they are unavoidable in describing today’s Labor party. What Australians are watching here is the political… Read more
Diary Australia – 11 August
Mates tell me I am foolishly resistant to social media. In having nothing to do with Twitter, they say, I make my life less interesting and stimulating. I am not… Read more
Australian Books: House style
Bringing Down The House By Barry Cohen Connor Court, $29.95, pp 260 ISBN 9781921421938 If you enjoy reading the Cut & Paste section in the Australian, you’ll love this book.… Read more
I ain’t marching anymore
Forget the US – it’s time to get out of Afghanistan Canberra The first time I turned out for a US president was two decades ago when George H.W. Bush… Read more
The great denier
Nick Minchin is perhaps uniquely adept at doling out the ideological red meat to his party’s centre-right base. But what a surprise it is to find that this 32-year veteran… Read more
A Shakespearean tragedy in Canberra
What with everything else going on in the world, you might be forgiven for thinking that this Easter week’s stories about Julia Gillard’s predictable poll ratings are of no consequence.… Read more
Turn up the radio
During Lent, blokes like me need to come clean and reveal their dirty little secrets: to admit that they have not always followed the path of moral righteousness, that they… Read more
A question of degree
A Guide to Climate Change Lunacy by Mark Lawson Connor Court, $29.95, pp. 228 ISBN 9781921421426 Today, however, the climate has changed so dramatically that only 26 per cent of… Read more
Conservatism has triumphed in Australia, whoever its next PM might be
He’s ‘too archetypically conservative’. He’s too much of a ‘King Catholic’. He views the world through a ‘narrow ideological prism’. He’ll ‘split the party’. He’s ‘unelectable as prime minister’. Under… Read more
Journos get it wrong (again)
Shitstorm: Inside Labor’s Darkest Days by Lenore Taylor & David Uren MUP, $34.99 pp. 276, ISBN 9780522857290 At first this seems a simple, intriguing little tale about how Australia weathered… Read more
Cameron should have learned from Turnbull
A centre-right leader won’t win power by turning his back on conservative principles, argues Tom Switzer The odd thing is that so many pundits and political professionals deluded themselves for… Read more
Our Ted Heath
For more than a decade, Malcolm Fraser has won plaudits from everyone: everyone except those who respect John Howard, that is, which is to say a clear majority of Australians.… Read more
Our Nixonian PM
‘At one time or another, he had espoused almost every worthy principle, often repeatedly,’ Newsweek once observed of Richard Nixon. ‘But in practice he violated enough of them to make… Read more
Unlikely bedfellows
The March of Patriots: The Struggle for Modern Australia, by Paul Kelly Melbourne University Press, $60, pp. 709, ISBN 9780522857382 Paul Kelly is the eminence grise of Australian journalism. He… Read more
A global miscalculation
I am trying to remember now when it was, and where it was, that it hit me. Was it last winter when sales of Ian Plimer’s Heaven & Earth went… Read more
A soft asylum policy will damage Labor
Why such a panic about a mere 78 boat people? Isn’t it dangerous for Labor and Liberal politicians to exploit the issue of race to whip up fear in the… Read more
All the way with the USA
One of the interesting asides in Annabel Crabb’s Quarterly essay on Malcolm Turnbull is the news that the Liberal leader once tried to buy the magazine you are now reading.… Read more
Our priorities are wrong
Major American newspapers rarely write editorials about public policy Down Under. But the Wall Street Journal did precisely that this month when the Rudd government released its Defence White Paper,… Read more
What goes up…
A new book on John Howard’s downfall contains a warning for Kevin Rudd, says Tom Switzer We’ve all heard Enoch Powell’s observation: ‘All political lives, unless they are cut off… Read more
Latest blogs
- The swivel-eyed loons in the Conservative party are revolting. And they are right to revolt. Alex Massie
- Top Tory calls party activists ‘mad swivel-eyed loons’ James Forsyth
- Spectator Play: what’s worth watching, listening to or going to this weekend Camilla Swift
- Hammond on manoeuvres? The other Tory MPs who fancy a crack at the leadership Isabel Hardman
- Some anti-fascists are very fascistic Douglas Murray
- What Gove should know about Singapore schools Clarissa Tan
- God, guns and America Peggy Riley
