Many years ago, acquaintances of ours, Peter and Ria Gill, owned a restaurant, Peaches1,2, in the Canberra suburb of Campbell and we would occasionally dine there. The food was wonderful…
Having recently written a long piece about the origin of what was termed neoliberal economics and how it inevitably led to a disgraceful, vacuous, malignant narcissist like Trump being elected…
Again and again the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) refers to what is being perpetrated by Israel on the people of Gaza as a ‘war’1-3. Everybody who has any understanding of…
[referring to the far right riots in England] That demonstrates that the people who believe the equine ordure that people like Musk, Trump, Farage and Dutton and their ilk spread, are exceptionally gullible. They think that they are returning their respective countries to 'the good old days' whereas all they are doing is making it safe for the oligarchs to keep suckling at the public teat.
[on the UK election] In her acceptance speech, Angela Rayner [Deputy PM, UK] said that the result was a response of the electorate to 14 years of Tory failure. I don't think the Tories failed - they have been highly successful for the elite they represent. Since 2010, the country's top few percent have seen their wealth quadruple, while most people have seen their real-term income drop. Bankers enjoy unlimited bonuses, public sector pay has been substantially cut, the tax burden has been significantly switched from rich to poor, privatised utilities profiteer from monopolistic positions without hindrance, and our railways are among the worst in the developed world, while being among the most expensive. These are all amazing achievements from a neoliberal perspective. The chief reason for their being ousted is that they didn't persuade the electorate as successfully as Reform that immigrants were responsible for all this.
We have been flat chat here getting ready to pack up and decamp. On top of that, I have been up to my armpits in an editing job (a book…