Amidst the despair unfolding in the world, buying Prince Harry’s Spare means you’ve been fooled into taking something seriously instead of discarding it at first sight. The Taliban forbid women to go out alone or attend universities, Israel confirms it is a racist, apartheid state, Rohingya refugees despair, executions continue in Iran, Russia is reducing Continue reading »
Media
The media reaction to the death of Cardinal George Pell is extraordinary. But his contribution to Australian Catholicism is very much a mixed blessing. Australian Catholicism has had its fair share of controversial figures. Melbourne Archbishop Daniel Mannix and Bob Santamaria come to mind immediately. But outstripping them all is Cardinal George Pell, a man Continue reading »
Research conducted by New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics into Russian trolling behaviour on Twitter in the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election has found “no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarisation, or voting behaviour.” Which is to say Continue reading »
To suggest that China and only China needs to provide negative COVID-19 tests, tests on arrival or even a complete ban of arrivals from China is a political and racist approach to a global health problem. The subject of Covid tests for travellers from China is arousing a lot of commentary in recent media reports. Continue reading »
We see a tendency to blame individuals for the crisis in our politics across the AUKUS nations. This is facile. Donald Trump did not create the farce of a Republican party seen in the vote for the Speaker in early January. Boris Johnson did not create the catastrophe that is the British Conservative party displayed Continue reading »
At the heart of Prince Harry’s latest salvo in the trans-Atlantic royal family breakdown, now clearly beyond repair, is his ultimate target – the media-Palace relationship which has torn his family apart and which in its public disintegration now threatens the monarchy itself. The unseemly family dysfunction, institutional racism or ‘unconscious bias’ in the descriptor Continue reading »
David TC Davies refused to be interviewed by a journalist who'd dug into allegations of climate change denialism and his equal rights stance
One of the challenges critics of our contemporary form of capitalism face, is how to make the analysis of that beast clear to a broad audience. Let’s face it, most academic books on the topic are hard to understand. Moreover, many people hardly ever read a non-fiction book about politics, let alone the economy. Film […]
When interviewed on Great Game on Russia’s state-run Channel One (8 Dec. 2022), Russia’s Foreign Minister, Secretary Lavrov, was given ample opportunity to set out Russia’s views on its role in the Ukraine and on the differences his country has with its many adversaries. The interview is long and Lavrov is aided by presenters who Continue reading »