The Spectator Australia

The Spectator is Britain’s oldest and most influential magazine, with incisive political and economic analysis, unrivalled books and arts reviews, and unmissable lifestyle writing, plus the funniest cartoons. It’s more cocktail party than political party, and we’d love it if you joined us.

Claytons royal commission

The Spectator Australia

CONTRIBUTORS

Is this the long goodbye? • One Nation’s rise may spell doom for Menzies’ party

Inquiry that can’t inquire • Beware the Bondi social cohesion clause

Theory versus practice • The shambolic NDIS

Bring back Superman • An antisemitic cartoon in the Nine papers is a grim sign of the times

Our worst treasurer • In a battle of two Jims, Chalmers wins

Britain ignores Bondi’s lessons • Starmer, like Albanese, will stay soft on Islam

Hope is not a strategy • Venezuela is a template for a Taiwan takeover

Fraser under the microscope

From the Torrens to the sea • Radical activists blow up Adelaide Writers’ Week

A cold house for Jews

PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

DIARY

Tolerating tyranny • Britain’s shameful paralysis over Iran

Apologists for evil • The regime’s defenders are on borrowed time

After the Ayatollahs • US intervention could push Iran into civil war and terrorism

1950s

Freed from desire • My bittersweet liberation from my libido

The age of absolutism

Cold blood • The Kremlin’s plan to create a new wave of Ukrainian refugees

Our growing obsession with race

Grace period • The challenges facing the new Archbishop of Canterbury

Live by lawfare, die by lawfare

Schoolboy error • The joyless reading app being forced on our children

Dying matters

There should be no ‘sanctuary’ from ICE

Mob rule • Inside Oldham’s toxic politics

BAROMETER

LETTERS

Trump’s attack on the Fed is a pivotal moment of hubris

‘This hybrid stuff’ • Julian Barnes has announced that he has written his last book. It is a masterpiece of narrative trickery, says Frances Wilson

Anxious times

CHRISTMAS CROSSWORD SOLUTION

Sounds familiar

On the run

Dylan’s mystique

Family dramas

The pint-sized prodigy

Write what you know

The Turn-On

And then the Revolution came

The games people play

Water marks • Richard Bratby celebrates the rich cultural heritage of transatlantic liners

We have ways of making you laugh

Private lives

The great pretender

Rich pickings

The rise and fall of the football presenter

Heaven knows he’s miserable now

Go west

Call me Ishmael, or Viola

Long hair

Best life

Real life

Wild life

Aussie life

Language

Remembering Jonathan Hawkins

Alternative facts

2735: Royal following

Grok is the Botticelli of our time

Battle For Britain

The speed-camera approach to government

DEAR MARY YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

The perfect January red

Invalid carriage

Labor’s compact with the devil • Albanese’s ‘I’m not to blame’ royal commission