Australia

Tuesday

Nick Cohen

RIP Robert Hughes: Enemy of the Woozy

Few books have had a greater effect on me than Robert Hughes’ Culture of Complaint. The clarity of Hughes’ style in his dissection of the discontents of the 1980s was enough to make me love him. In his political writing, histories and art criticism he never descended into theory or jargon, but imitated his heroes, Tom Paine, George Orwell and EP Thompson, and talked to the reader without condescension or obscurantism Critics denounce and admirers celebrate the ‘muscular style’, but I find it more courteous than macho. Hughes tackled hard and often obscure subjects, the rise of modern art, the penal colonies in early Australia, and made a deal with

Sunday

Mark Steyn

Vivat Regina

This article appears in the latest issue of Spectator Australia. We thought that CoffeeHousers would like to read it. The trick to monarchy is not queening it. In The Radetzky March, Joseph Roth’s great novel of the Habsburg twilight, the Emperor Franz Joseph has it down to a tee:  ‘At times he feigned ignorance and was delighted when someone gave him a longwinded explanation about things he knew thoroughly… He was delighted at their vanity in proving to themselves that they were smarter than he …for it does not behoove an emperor to be as smart as his advisers.’  At dinner in Melbourne and Sydney, as in Toronto and Montreal,

Friday

Alex Massie

An Epidemic of Not Scoring

Watching Andy Coulson answer the Leveson inquiry’s questions with a dead bat yesterday, the likes of Robert Shrimsley and Tim Montgomerie tweeted that viewing Coulson testify was akin to watching Chris Tavaré bat. Those of you who remember Tavaré will appreciate that this was not meant altogether kindly. This will not do. I concede that as a child no cricketer infuriated me more than Tavaré. He seemed to me, then, to be some kind of anti-cricketer, forever forgetting that scoring runs – preferably with style – was a batsman’s chief objective. I fear I disliked poor Tavaré as keenly as ever any gum-chewing Australian did. There was, after all, so

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Interview of the Year

Since I discovered this interview on Armando Iannucci’s Twitter feed I wondered if it was actually a spoof. But no, it seems Bill Shorten really is an Australian politician and not an Ocker Chris Morris. Anyway, for the time being it is my new favourite political interview…

Monday

Tom Switzer

Australia’s Labor party is infighting its way to an electoral hiding

This morning a friend from London emailed to find out what the hell has happened to the Australian Labor Party? He was responding to the news overnight that, in a ballot for Labor’s 102-strong legislative caucus, Julia Gillard (the most unpopular prime minister in Australian history) smashed Kevin Rudd (the most popular prime minister in Australian history, whom she knifed late one night in June 2010) by a record 71 to 31 votes. ‘How can this be?’ my friend asked. Well, Rudd’s fall from grace has little to do with Gillard and everything to do with Rudd. The 54-year-old Mandarin-speaking former diplomat has two weaknesses: he has never been much

Wednesday

Tom Switzer

An Australian bloodbath

Australian politics is all aflutter at the resignation of Kevin Rudd as Foreign Minister. What happens now? Will he challenge Julia Gillard for the job of Prime Minister? Here’s tomorrow’s leader from our sister magazine Spectator Australia (edited by Tom Switzer) for CoffeeHousers’ benefit: It’s an intricate two-step, but one false move now spells death. As Kevin Rudd surprises everyone, including his own supporters, with his adroit middle-of-the-night resignation in Washington DC, seeking the ideal strategic moment to knife his nemesis, the Prime Minister ducks and weaves hoping she won’t shoot herself in the foot (again). ‘The simple truth is that I cannot continue to serve as Foreign Minister if

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Test Cricket, Eh? Bloody Hell.

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh when reading about Australia’s latest cricket crisis and, reader, I’ve no heart of stone. Much more of this and we’ll have to wonder if the Aussies really deserve a five test series these days. The present crew are, apparently, “The Lowest of the Low”. To which one can only say: not while anyone who played for England in the fiasco of 1988 is alive they ain’t. But this is the thing about Test cricket: its habit of sneaking up and whacking your senses when you least expect it. This was a humdrum, low-key Test in tiny, sleepy Hobart (of which

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Reigning for dummies

  What is the Queen’s secret? She seems to defy political gravity. Right now, an English monarch is in Australia being feted by her subjects, who seem delighted by this very un-modern constitutional arrangement. Paul Keating, the former Prime Minister of Australia, recounts in The Times today the time he advised the monarch to let go. “I told the Queen as politely and gently as I could that I believed that majority of Australians felt the monarchy was now an anachronism; that it had gently drifted into obsolescence.” This was 18 years ago. There is no such sign of this now, with just 34 per cent of Australians being in favour of

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Brooks stands firm

More fuel for the firestorm: this time, a letter by Rebekah Brooks, answering questions put to her by the Home Affairs select committee. It truth, it doesn’t say much that wasn’t either spelt out or suggested in Brooks’ earlier statement this week. But its three main assertions are still worth noting: Brooks had “no knowledge” about the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone, she claims; likewise for “any other cases during [her] tenure”; and “the practice of phone hacking is not continuing at the News of the World.” In the meantime, Labour are keeping up the political pressure — asking, now, for a judge-led inquiry to convene sooner, sooner, sooner, in

Friday

Alex Massie

Department of Law Enforcement

Via Johnson, a remarkable statute in Victoria which criminalises: Any person who in or near a public place or within the view or hearing of any person being or passing therein or thereon- sings an obscene song or ballad; writes or draws exhibits or displays an indecent or obscene word figure or representation; uses profane indecent or obscene language or threatening abusive or insulting words; or behaves in a riotous indecent offensive or insulting manner- shall be guilty of an offence. Penalty: 10 penalty units or imprisonment for two months; For a second offence-15 penalty units or imprisonment for three months; For a third or subsequent offence-25 penalty units or

Tuesday

Matthew Elliott

Why AV will cost £250 million

Today the NO to AV campaign has published research showing that the change to AV will cost the UK an additional £250 million, and – judging by the Yes campaign’s panicky reaction – this charge has hit home. Our estimate represents the additional cost of AV. The government stated the referendum would cost over £90 million – less, admittedly, than if it were not combined with council elections – and the remainder comes from vote counting machines (£130 million) and voter awareness (£26 million). This is, if anything, a conservative estimate. For voter education, we have only set aside 42 pence per person, and we haven’t included the costs of

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

Aussie rules | 19 January 2011

William Hague has been visiting Australia in the last couple of days, alongside half of the National Security Council. But you would not know it. Except for a few comments in the blogosphere, there has been little write-up of the visit in the newspapers. In many ways this encapsulates one of the government’s key foreign policy dilemmas. Many of the world¹s problems require cooperation with the US, Europe and the BRICs ­ but especially the BRICs, who, for all their flaws and faults, are the fast-growing countries on the planet. If you want to force an end to Iran¹s illegal nuclear enrichment programme, then you need China. If you have

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Helping Australia

William Hague is in Australia and the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary has been tweeting bits and pieces about his visit: In Sydney for the AUKMIN discussions with our Australian counterparts. UK-Australia relationship going from strength to strength. Heading back to Sydney for events at British Chamber of Commerce, British Council and a big speech on foreign policy. No word yet on plans to announce a programme of batting and bowling and fielding aid to our beleaguered friends beneath the Southern Cross. No, this sort of thing won’t get old for some time to come. At least not until the summer of 2013…

Monday

Daniel Korski

A flooded world

It looks like the opening of a Hollywood disaster film. The South African government has declared parts of the country disaster areas, after 40 people died in floods in a month. At the same time, the UN is to launch an appeal for emergency flood aid for Sri Lanka, where at least 32 people have died and more than 300,000 have been displaced. Meanwhile flood waters in Australia have left a trail of destruction, at least 18 dead and a billion dollar bill for reconstruction. And in Brazil, survivors of the floods that have killed more than 600 people are frustrated by the lack of government help. Are these floods

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Australian Way of Love

Noted without comment: A bizarre decision to ride an inflatable doll down a flood-swollen Yarra River blew up in a woman’s face yesterday when she lost her latex playmate in a rough patch. The incident prompted a warning from police that blow-up sex toys are “not recognised flotation devices’’. Police and a State Emergency Services crew were called to the rescue when the woman and a man, both 19, struck trouble at Warrandyte North about 4.30pm yesterday. They were floating down the river on two inflatable dolls and had just passed the Pound Bend Tunnel when the woman lost her toy in turbulent water. She clung to a floating tree,

Saturday

The Spectator

Leader: King’s ransom

When George Osborne decided to raise VAT, more months ago than he will admit, he did not imagine that he would be compounding the worst inflation in Western Europe. Prices are currently falling in Ireland, flat in Germany and rising only slightly throughout the rest of the Eurozone and America. But in Britain, inflation is back with a vengeance. This week, millions of shopkeepers raised prices by far more than the 2.1 per cent needed to accommodate the new tax. They did so not out of greed, but in preparation for a year of rising heating, staff and transport costs. The shopkeepers realise what Mervyn King, the Governor of the

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

From the archives: Cricketing over Christmas

How do cricket players get on with touring abroad over Christmas? Mike Atherton, the former England captain, penned an article on the matter for our Christmas issue in 2004. With England currently taking it to the Aussies in Melbourne, I thought it would be a good time to excavate it from the archives:  Some like it hot, Michael Atherton, The Spectator, 18 December 2004 ‘It is no more a place for them than a trench on the Somme’ was the withering verdict of John Woodcock, the Times’s cricket correspondent, on the presence of wives on an England tour three decades ago. Woodcock, it must be said, was and is single,

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust: If Swanny Don’t Get You, Anderson Must

So, little blogging here. Partly because, even more so than usual, I’ve been living on Australian time these past few days. I’ve a quick piece up at Critical Reaction on the Adelaide Massacre: Never mind ‘Were you up for Portillo?’ Were you up for Adelaide? An entire generation of England supporters have waited all their lives for this sort of payback moment. Not since 1985 have England dominated a series in this fashion; not since Mike Gatting led MCC to victory in 1986-87 have England enjoyed even a marginal supremacy Down Under.  Indeed, Gatting’s side was the last to win a ‘live’ test in Australia. You have to be over 35

Saturday

Alex Massie

Stick It Up Your Punter

There are only three things wrong with this Australian side. They can’t bat, they can’t bowl and they can’t field. A harsh verdict and one that may need to be revised before the end of the series, but one that’s an accurate appraisal of Australia’s most recent efforts. This is a good but hardly great England side. It ain’t Jack Hobbs and Wally Hammond hammering these hapless Aussie bowlers but Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott… “There’s only one side playing cricket out there – and it’s not Australia” said a commentator on Test Match Sofa* which is the kind of deliciously piquant assessment England supporters have been waiting to dish