Category: Spectator Australia

What do Stokely Carmichael, Harry Belafonte, Colin Powell, Sidney Poitier and Busta Rhymes have in common? And how are Beyoncé, Ava DuVernay, Barack Obama and Kamala Harris alike? None of the first set is descended from American slaves. All of the second are descended from slave-owners. Much of the media

It had to happen. On Monday evening, just under a week after 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse at Beirut’s port exploded and killed over 160 people, the entire Lebanese government resigned. This was not a surprise. The blast resulted from negligence of the grossest kind. Three

Among other measures, Microsoft would ensure that all private data of TikTok’s American users is transferred to and remains in the United States. To the extent that any such data is currently stored or backed-up outside the United States, Microsoft would ensure that this data is deleted

Why would a benevolent God deny us the prospect of a debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump? As the first head-to-head between the two presidential candidates approaches, leading voices on the center-left have been making the case that Biden should not debate the President. In the New York Times,

Ilhan Omar haters have whipped themselves into a hopeful frenzy thinking the first Somali American woman to serve in Congress will be primaried by black lawyer Antone Melton-Meaux this week. In many ways, Melton-Meaux is the perfect challenger. He is equally as progressive, having spent much of his campaign advocating

I saw a little cloud no bigger than a man’s fist that was coming in from the sea, reported the servant of the Prophet Elijah to his master. In that Bible story, the incoming cloud was the sign of an impending rainstorm that the drought-hit land of Israel positively yearned

Why did Covid prove so lethal in care homes? Between 2 March and 12 June, there were 66,112 deaths of care home residents in England. Of these, 19,394 ‘involved’ Covid (in the Office of National Statistics’s own terminology) – 29.3 per cent of the total. As has been apparent from

If you’ve kept half an eye on the ‘who will it be?’ story that is the Democratic party’s vice-presidential nomination, you’ll have heard commentators suggesting that Biden will pick a ‘do no harm’ candidate. In other words, Biden should play it safe: given his lead in the polls, he can

It’s official – lockdown will eventually have a greater impact on our lives and health than Covid-19 itself. That, at any rate, is the conclusion of a study by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), which was published quietly on 15 July. The study uses a measure known

It’s hard to believe Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko will retain his half-affectionate, half-exasperated nickname ‘Batka’ (Dad) after his re-election yesterday in a presidential vote rigged beyond the point of farce, which led to violent street protests across the country. Despite claims he had fled the country, the ‘last dictator in Europe’

In the coming weeks, Australia will mark the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. It seems only yesterday since the 50th anniversary of that same date, when scores of veterans, most in their eighth decades, charmed the nation at a series of commemorative events from recreated rail and

Are the Lib Dems finished? It’s not the first time that question has been asked. In fact, it’s a fairly regular refrain. With the days when the Liberal Democrats reliably won around 40 to 60 seats a distant memory, the party has struggled since the coalition years to find relevance. Ahead of