Latest Articles
We are encouraged to rely more and more on government officials to do for us what we could equally well do for ourselves—and, maybe more importantly, not to do what might help us solve our own problems.
Sep 08 2024
10 mins
If we imagine a metric called the Pinocchio Scale, which measures the number of lies told by a politician as a percentage of his or her overall public statements, our current prime minister (for want of a better description), Airbus Albo, has moved well into uncharted territory.
Sep 06 2024
5 mins
What a tangled Brexit web we weave
George Bernard Shaw once began a BBC radio talk in the 1930s with the ominous words: “People often ask me: Is Britain heading straight for disaster?” Then he gave his cheerful reply: “That is a question I can easily answer: Britain is not heading straight for anything.”
Applying that analysis to the current state of British politics over Brexit, one might say that Britain has been zig-zagging to disaster for almost the whole of this year. After innumerable negotiations, false dawns, Cabinet rows and ministerial resignations, Shaw and I ask, has the country finally arrived at its destination?
In early November there was one sign that suggested the end-game was near. A Downing Street “communications grid” on how the government would sell the long-awaited EU-UK agreement in order to help it over the substantial humps of parliamentary opposition and popular scepticism was leaked to the BBC.
Inevitably, it made hilarious reading. There would be a Cabinet agreement on the…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins
