Martin Edwards Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife Aria & Aries, September 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife – how could any player of Cluedo resist reading this book? And then, when it becomes clear that Martin Edwards has produced a pure example of a Golden Age detective story, the result is unquestionable. It must be read. With murder mystery game within murder mystery, this novel is an amalgam of engaging storytelling, clear plotting, a blend of subtle and sharp characterisation, and a feast for the reader-investigator. One story line is the game devised by the hosts, the Midwinter Trust; the other is what happens to the six guests; their hosts, the four Midwinter Trust members; and the two staff members, a chef, and a chauffeur. The guests have a great deal resting upon their success at solving the mystery as each has suffered a severe decline in their career, prospects and hope for the future.
The reader-investigator has two mysteries to unravel – the game, and the events that occur over the freezing Christmas at Midwinter Village. The guests must solve the puzzles they are given. The reader also has an option to do so as they are provided in Bonus Puzzle Content throughout the book. Puzzles and written material provide plenty of clues. The clues to the mystery in which guests, staff and Trust members become embroiled are, as with any skilled Golden Age mystery, scattered throughout the text. At the end of the book these are presented politely to the reader – politely in that even with my poor showing in deduction I did not feel too foolish. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
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Alison Stockham Let Her Go Boldwood Books, November 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley and Boldwood Books, for this uncorrected proof for review.
Let Her Go is an engrossing mixture of psychological thriller and a compelling insight into the behaviour of a stalker, its impact on those pursued and on the stalker themselves. Hannah, Libby, and Matt have been a close-knit threesome since their university days, and into Libby and Matt’s marriage. Hannah is Libby’s best friend, and will do anything for her, anything to protect her…anything to keep her by her side. Matt does not miss out on Hannah’s support either – she refers to herself as his second wife, while keeping well within the bounds of fidelity to her and Libby’s friendship. With the prologue, in which Libby is threatened at gunpoint in a burglary at her favourite expensive shop, their lives change, with Libby disappearing, Matt seemingly secretive about her whereabouts, and Hannah becoming increasingly distressed about his behaviour and the loss of her friend, compounded by her unsatisfactory relationships at work and with other acquaintances.
The claustrophobic nature of Hannah’s ruminations and actions becomes increasingly difficult to navigate. At the same time, there is enough interaction with Matt raising questions and reminders of the closeness of Hannah and Libby’s friendship to maintain the mounting tension – what has happened to Libby? Is Hannah right to pursue her feelings of concern about her withdrawal of friendship? Is she unreasonable, or is her behaviour validated by the long-term friendship and past? What is the explanation of Libby’s behaviour? These questions mount, with Hannah’s various interactions with friends and family raising more questions. The twists and turns in this novel are plausible at the same time as creating further speculation about the characters’ motivations and conduct. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
A great start to Christmas Day – coffee at Kopiku
We all enjoyed our coffee, avoiding the lovely meals that we could see others consuming -Indonesian and Australian breakfasts – as we were preparing for our generous Christmas lunch.
This time we had breakfast, on another sunny day in Canberra.
News & Media
Now released short film: Gossip!
East Anglia, 1584. When a young woman goes into labour a group of women, led by the local midwife, guide her through the trials of labour. But as they celebrate the safe arrival of new life, a greater danger arrives at the door.
Directed and co-written by Hannah Renton, and now part of Birth Rites Collection, Gossip tells the untold story of witches as they really were – midwives, healers, women with knowledge and power. The film has been made available online for the first time from 11 December, in partnership with the Birth Rites Collection, the world’s first contemporary art collection dedicated to childbirth.
The film is now available to watch worldwide on Vimeo on demand: here. The Birth Rites Collection is committed to making art accessible and inclusive. We are asking for a symbolic £1.99 fee, with all proceeds going directly to support the artist and our public programmes.
Call for Papers for ‘Women, Money, and Markets; Crisis and Resilience (1650-1950)’, the 2026 Annual Conference held by The Foundling Museum
The conference will be held at the Foundling Museum, London (U.K.) Friday and Saturday, June 12-13, 2026.
We invite submissions for our 9th interdisciplinary conference exploring how women’s interactions with money, markets, and finance have shaped, and been shaped by, economic crises, financial literacy practices, and strategies for resilience across time and borders. This year, we especially welcome reflections on how evolving political landscapes reshape economic power, knowledge access, and inclusion. womenmoneymarkets.co.uk.
We will be celebrating the publication of our first edited collection, Women, Money, and Markets: Uncovering the Invisible Hands of the Economy (Boydell & Brewer, 2026).
Possible areas of interest include but are not limited to:
Material Culture and Financial Activism;
Drawing inspiration from The Foundling Hospital’s archives, how material items, including sewing/knitting, tokens, calendars, etc., were used by women to teach, learn, or execute financial skills, especially when formal institutions excluded them; how artifacts—e.g. pocketbooks, receipts, letters, teaching pamphlets—help to reveal financial practices that women adopted when formal systems were under threat or failed.
Resilience in Marginalisation;
Women’s survival strategies, real or fictional—e.g. cooperatives, informal credit, communal aid—in the face of systemic exclusion from formal markets, such as through –
Literature, Media, and Representation;
Historical and fictional portrayals of women’s money agency, and financial roles during economic collapses or shifts.
Comparative and Cross-Cultural Dimensions;
Global case studies comparing diverse legal and economic environments, from colonial economies to more recent policy changes.
Differences and commonalities in how women in different societies responded to economic marginalisation or inclusion
Surviving Economic and Political Backlash;
Fictional depictions of women exhibiting financial ingenuity against barriers, or amidst repression, particularly when legal safeguards are weakened.
Women’s resilience practices during discriminatory regimes or policy rollbacks. How women acquired, deployed, or withheld financial knowledge during periods of political and economic upheaval.
Submission Guidelines
How diminished legal protections have disrupted women’s financial agency.
Abstracts: Up to 300 words for individual papers.
Panel Proposals: Include abstracts (≤300 words each) for up to three speakers.
·Formats: Individual papers, panels, or roundtable discussions.
Submit to: Enquiries to Dr. Emma Newport at e.newport@sussex.ac.uk. Submissions via Google Form in link here . Deadline January 15, 2026
American Politics
Joyce Vance from Civil Discourse <joycevance@substack.com> Tue 30 Dec, 17:04
It’s quicker than going to court, like Congress can, to enforce a subpoena in a civil case. It doesn’t involve referring a case to DOJ, which can (and almost always does when the executive branch is concerned) decline to prosecute a criminal contempt. Inherent contempt is the third type of contempt power Congress possesses—not used since 1935. But Congress used it repeatedly before the civil and criminal contempt laws were passed.
It’s an understatement at this point to say that both Democrats and Republicans in Congress aren’t happy with how Attorney General Pam Bondi is “complying” with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. It’s not just the botched production of documents; it’s also her failure to comply with deadlines, the incomplete production, and the heavily redacted releases, which seem to be offering protection to some of the powerful men who spent time with Jeffrey Epstein, which the Act explicitly prohibits.
House Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie are leading the charge for the House to bring inherent contempt charges against Bondi, to force her to comply with the law.
Although inherent contempt doesn’t have a constitutional basis, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held it’s an essential part of Congress’s essential legislative powers. In 1927, in McGrain v. Daugherty, the Supreme Court ruled on a case where the brother of a former attorney general received a subpoena for testimony and records from a Senate committee. But he refused to comply, not just once, but twice, so the Senate issued a warrant for his arrest using its inherent contempt power. Daugherty went to court, and the Supreme Court held that Congress has the power to enforce compliance with its subpoenas “to obtain information in aid of the legislative function.” That’s inherent contempt.“Each house of Congress has power, through its own process, to compel a private individual to appear before it or one of its committees and give testimony needed to enable it efficiently to exercise a legislative function belonging to it under the Constitution,” the Court held. It found that there was support for inherent contempt as “in long practice of the houses separately, and in repeated Acts of Congress, all amounting to a practical construction of the Constitution.”
Khanna and Massey understand that if they seek civil enforcement, they’ll end up tied up in court. DOJ is not going to bring a criminal contempt case against Trump’s attorney general. Using inherent contempt, although it’s a throwback to almost one hundred years ago, permits them to go straight to holding Bondi accountable if a majority in the House will vote for it—something that remains to be seen and may well turn on how strong public opinion is on the issue. The House doesn’t even need the Senate’s approval to do it.
Inherent contempt has traditionally been used to put offenders in jail, but there is support for the view that it can also be used to impose fines, which is what’s under discussion here—Bondi could be fined $5000 a day, each day, for as long as DOJ fails to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Action. In an 1821 Supreme Court case, Anderson v. Dunn, the Court suggested that Congress should use “the least possible power adequate to the end proposed,” when invoking inherent contempt. While that may be imprisonment in the case of a person who refused to testify, in a case like this one involving failure to comply with a law, there is a solid argument that a few is the “least possible power” Congress could bring to bear to force a recalcitrant attorney general into compliance.
Whether Bondi would respond is uncertain, perhaps even unlikely, but inherent contempt would be a modest first step toward getting the administration to comply with the law and release the files. If it failed, it would be easier to justify a more serious step like impeaching Bondi, particularly if the public is determined to see the files released. At the end of the day, Bondi has a law license to worry about. The cautionary tale of state bars that disbarred lawyers like Rudy Giuliani who strayed too far from their ethical obligations as lawyers in service of Trump during his first term should weigh heavily on anyone who hopes to have a future, post-Trump.
Inherent contempt “has been described as ‘unseemly,’ cumbersome, time-consuming, and relatively ineffective, especially for a modern Congress with a heavy legislative workload that would be interrupted by a trial at the bar.” Commentators have suggested that’s why it hasn’t been used since 1935. But in the unique circumstance the country now finds itself in, it may be that Congress should decline to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and reemploy this practicable solution to what otherwise appears to be an intractable problem. Epstein’s survivors deserve justice. Right now, that’s up to Congress.
Thank you for being here with me at Civil Discourse. Writing the newsletter takes time, care, and decades of experience to sort through the noise and explain what actually matters for our democracy. If being part of a thoughtful, engaged community matters to you, I hope you’ll become a paid subscriber. It’s what makes this work possible.
Steve Rattner’s very worthwhile Annual Year in Charts for the NYT (gift link) has this this encouraging look at Gallup data over time:
Here’s our latest look at the weekly Economist/YouGov tracker:
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries sent the following letter to his colleagues yesterday:
Dear Colleague:
I write with respect to the upcoming solemn anniversary of the January 6th brutal attack on the Capitol. Nearly five years ago, a violent mob incited by Donald Trump attempted to halt the peaceful transfer of power. As a result of the extraordinary bravery of the men and women of the U.S. Capitol Police and other law enforcement professionals, the treacherous effort to prevent certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election failed.
However, the cost was profound. More than 140 heroic police officers were seriously injured and many suffered lasting physical and psychological trauma. Several tragically lost their lives. In the years since that disgraceful day, far-right Republicans in Congress have repeatedly attempted to rewrite history and whitewash the events of January 6th. Our country has been indelibly scarred.
Donald Trump promised to lower the high cost of living on day one of his presidency. One year later, costs are out of control, America is too expensive and Republicans believe that the affordability crisis is a hoax. They have done nothing to lower costs for everyday Americans, but are gutting healthcare and enacted massive tax breaks for their billionaire donors.
The toxic priorities of the Republican Party are clear. On day one of his second term, President Trump issued blanket pardons and commutations to the nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with the January 6th attack, including hundreds of violent felons who brutally assaulted law enforcement officers. Several of those individuals have been charged with new crimes throughout the country, putting the safety of the American people in jeopardy. A troubling number of the criminals pardoned by Donald Trump have been arrested for child molestation, sexual assault and kidnapping. Republicans own the failed economy, their broken promise to lower costs and the crime spree the dangerous criminals pardoned by the President have visited on our country.
We must never forget the horrors of January 6th and will continue to honor the brave law enforcement officers who were injured and lost their lives defending the rule of law in the United States. To that end, on the fifth anniversary of that fateful day, led by the Honorable Bennie Thompson and the Members of the January 6th Select Committee, House Democrats will hold a special hearing that will commence at 10:00 a.m.
At the hearing, we will examine ongoing threats to free and fair elections posed by an out-of-control Trump administration, expose the election deniers who hold high-level positions of significance in the executive branch and detail the threats to public safety posed by the hundreds of violent felons who were pardoned on the President’s first day in office. We will also present a panel of Members who wish to share their personal experiences from that horrific day. If you wish to testify, please contact Emily Berrett by 12:00 p.m. ET on Friday, January 2.
Thank you for your leadership and I look forward to our continued work in the new year to make life better for the American people.
Australian Politics
PM Anthony Albanese: We’re responding to the Bondi antisemitic terror attack with unity and urgency, not division and delay.
PM Anthony Albanese: To the doctors, nurses and medical staff across Sydney, thank you.
After Bondi, you’ve been caring for those injured, comforting families and saving lives.
In the darkest moments, your strength and compassion have shone through.
Australia is deeply grateful.
Anthony Albanese announces terms for Richardson review of Bondi terrorist attack.
(By Brianna Morris-Grant, ABC)
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced the terms of an independent review of the Bondi Beach terror attack, resisting calls for a royal commission by victim’s families.
The review, led by Dennis Richardson AC, will examine the actions of Australia’s federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies leading up to the attack that claimed the lives of 15 people, including a 10-year-old child.
Seventeen families of those injured and killed in the attack signed a plea on Monday calling for a royal commission.
Their letter demanded “answers and solutions”, asking why “clear warning signs were ignored”.
The independent review will assess whether multiple agencies — including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australia Federal Police — operated as effectively as possible prior to the attack.
Mr Albanese said his “heart breaks” for the families of those affected.
“Just over two weeks ago, antisemitic terrorists tried to tear our country apart, but our country is stronger than these cowards,” he said.
“They went to Bondi Beach to unleash mass murder against our Jewish community. We need to respond with unity and urgency rather than division and delay.”
Review to be given ‘full access’ to materials for Bondi inquiry
The review was slated to be completed and published in April.
Mr Albanese and other federal officials had expressed concerns about the length of time a royal commission would take and the potential platforming of antisemitism during the process.
Mr Richardson, the former head of ASIO and of the departments of defence and foreign affairs, has led earlier reviews into the intelligence community and sections of home affairs.
Mr Albanese’s announcement followed another meeting of the National Security Committee in Canberra.
“Mr Richardson will assess whether Commonwealth agencies performed to maximum effectiveness,” he said.
“He will consider what these agencies knew about the alleged offenders before the attack, the information sharing between Commonwealth agencies and between Commonwealth and state agencies.”
The review will also consider what judgements agencies made and if there were additional measures that could have prevented the attack.
“Mr Richardson will [have] full access to all material he considers may be relevant to his inquiry,” Mr Albanese said.
“Departments and agencies will cooperate fully with the review and provide assistance in the form of documents, data, material and meetings.”
He added parliament would resume in 2026 to consider legislation “as soon as possible”.
Royal commission would ‘revive some of the worst examples of antisemitism’… [the opposing views are canvassed below].
Albanese sorry but rejects royal commission, as Labor MPs break ranks
Updated Dec 22, 2025 – 4.17pm,first published at 9.42am
Two Labor MPs have broken ranks to call for a national inquiry into the Bondi terror attack, including the issue of Islamic extremism, joining Jewish Australian groups to demand more action at the federal level.
Despite the calls from Ed Husic and Mike Freelander, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese dug in further on Monday against the idea, arguing a NSW royal commission and narrower federal review would be enough.
Anthony Albanese attends a Jewish community vigil at Bondi Beach on Sunday. Edwina Pickles
Freelander told The Australian Financial Review that the attack, which killed 15 people and one Islamic State-inspired terrorism gunman, raised “national issues and the national government needs to be the one dealing with it”.
Ed Husic, the first Muslim cabinet minister before he was dumped from the ministry in May, called for a royal commission to find out “how this happened [and] what we can do to root out extremism whichever form it comes in”.
“I’ve previously said I don’t care if it’s Islamist or far-right extremism, anything that presents a threat to Australians must be confronted,” he said.
“I’d be concerned that federal agencies might feel that they wouldn’t have the ability to participate fully in a state-based inquiry. Let’s remove the uncertainty and have a proper and thorough look at this.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been heckled as he arrived at Bondi Beach for the candlelight vigil.
Albanese has supported a NSW royal commission and set up a federal inquiry into intelligence agencies and law enforcement to be run by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and former public servant Dennis Richardson.
On Monday, Albanese told reporters in Canberra he did not favour a federal royal commission because he wanted to act with “urgency and unity, not division and delay”.
“As prime minister, I feel the weight of responsibility for an atrocity that happened whilst I’m prime minister,” he said. “And I’m sorry for what the Jewish community and our nation as a whole has experienced. The government will work every day to protect Jewish Australians.”
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke outlined a series of measures, including making it easier to cancel visas, a new offence of inciting hatred and the creation of an aggravated offence targeting adults who seek to influence and radicalise children.
Earlier, the former treasurer Josh Frydenberg labelled the Richardson review a cop out, and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley proposed terms for a broader federal royal commission, including into antisemitism and the effectiveness of the Albanese government’s response.
Freelander, the member for Macarthur in south-western Sydney, said: “The general feeling in my electorate is people want to see all levels of government – state, local, and federal – work together try and get some answers about the event that happened at Bondi.”
“That has changed us forever. We need to bury the dead, we then need to look at how to rationally approach all the issues across all levels of government.”
Asked about Albanese’s assurance that federal authorities would co-operate with the planned NSW royal commission, Freelander replied: “I’m not sure what that means, what authority a state royal commission would have, and how far that co-operation would go.”
“It seems to me that there are national issues, so the national government needs to be the one dealing with it. Sure, there are state and local government issues as well, so all levels of government need to work together.
“But surely, there are deep operational issues, security issues, even philosophical issues about what we do with Muslim extremists … that certainly has to be a national inquiry.”
NSW Board of Jewish Deputies president David Ossip and Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion used their contributions at a Bondi terror attack memorial on Sunday to call for a royal commission.
Ossip said it “cannot be disputed” that a federal royal commission was needed. “In a more just world, we wouldn’t be trying to pick up the pieces and understand how last week took place.”
“How, after two years of escalating antisemitism and warnings from the Jewish community and ASIO that lives were going to be lost, that the terrorist attack still took place?” he said.
“Because, while we are all in shock and deeply sad, we are not surprised. We feared and suspected that this moment was coming.”
Aghion said that “every level of government from the federal government down and every sector of society must take the necessary steps to make us all safe”.
“One necessary step is, as David Ossip has already said, and I thank him for the courage to say it, a Commonwealth royal commission.”
Former High Court chief justice Robert French has said in a statement that there is a “moral imperative” to inquire into the “surreal evil” of the Bondi attack, and a Commonwealth royal commission would be most effective.
At a press conference on Monday, Ley said, “The Jewish community made it abundantly clear they want a Commonwealth royal commission into this attack and into the hideous antisemitism that has been allowed to fester in this country.”
Opposition education spokesman Julian Leeser said the departmental review into the Bondi attack was “another attempt at deflecting and minimising the Jew hate that has been allowed to go on in this country”.
But Albanese said the Coalition’s proposed terms of reference – which include education, the arts, culture, and migration – amounted to an inquiry into “the whole functioning of Australia”.
“What we need to do is to work immediately. That is what the Richardson review will do. And in addition to that, it will feed into the inquiry, which hasn’t been announced in NSW,” he said. “The idea that we would have multiple royal commissions as well as a review running at the same time is going to simply delay action.”
Earlier on Monday, NSW Premier Chris Minns confirmed the state royal commission would examine federal agencies, including spy agency ASIO, describing it as a “comprehensive investigation” into the Bondi attack.
Kristen Lopez, Popcorn Disabilities, Bloomsbury Academic, November 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
Prepare to question your responses to disability, not only as depicted in the films that are discussed, but also in relation to friends and strangers with a disability and government and non-government disability policies. Kristen Lopez has opened a discussion that, while concentrating on films, raises questions about a broad range of issues related to disability. In doing so, Lopez has created a narrative that is superbly knowable about numerous films. Some are obviously relevant; others raise important questions that conflict with understood meanings about disability and its depiction. It is the range of examples, the preparedness to see positive aspects amongst the dross, and to succinctly criticise the latter that gives this book its gravitas. I sometimes felt offended, after all I have some knowledge of the issues. Or so I thought! But this is another strength of Lopez’s work. Questioning one’s own responses to the films and her ideas is a valuable tool for making the most of the information in Popcorn Disabilities.
Some of the chapter titles provide useful clues to the issues Lopez sees in the films she describes. ‘Silent Saints and Tragic Monsters’ immediately reminds anyone who has seen films that include disability of the way in which people with disabilities have been portrayed. Why? Is the question such a reader and film goer must ask. ‘War and the rise of the Bitter Cripple’, again, an easily recognisable trope. In contrast, ‘Black and Disabled’ raises no such recognition. Again, why? ‘Disabled Horror and the Horror of Disability’ is such a profoundly distressing image, and so too, are the realities raised in the chapter. ‘Pretty Disabilities’ the opposite image to that in the previous chapter, also casts a wide swathe through audience reception of characters with a disability in films. As an audience can we acknowledge our own feelings about disability and the ‘costume’ it wears to placate us? See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and frontbenchers Andrew Bragg, Julian Leeser and Jonathon Duniam at Bondi Beach. Photo: AAP
There is no denying Australia’s sense of safety has been shattered. There is no denying antisemitism exists in Australia and that the fears of the Jewish community have been horrifically realised in a way that perhaps we will never recover from.
There is no denying that in the days and months to come we will learn more about what could, should and didn’t happen to prevent what was supposed to be an unimaginable tragedy in Australia.
Jewish fears of an attack have been very real, with schools, synagogues, sporting and religious events requiring additional security. There are few communities (Muslims an exception) that would ever understand the cultural and psychological impacts of that. For Jewish people, last Sunday’s massacre came on top of those effects.
But there is also no denying that rather than try to promote unity, healing and a national stand against all forms of hate, some have sought to exploit that tragedy amid a completely unprecedented moment in Australian political history.
Never before has there been an opposition that has blamed a government for an act of terror and mass murder. Before Sunday, the rule for both major political parties was to place national unity ahead of any political gain.
In modern political history, Labor has been in opposition when Australia has experienced these nation-shaking acts. It has, in response, held firm to whatever line the Coalition government of the day was promoting.
This included in 1996, when Labor immediately pledged supportfor the Howard government’s gun laws; 2002, when then-Labor leader Simon Crean travelled with John Howard to Indonesia after the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
In 2005, Kim Beazley followed Howard’s denial of reality and refused to label the Cronulla race riots as “racist”, as Howard had immediately responded by saying “I do not accept that there is underlying racism in this country. I have always taken a more optimistic view of the character of the Australian people”. The thinking at the time was that political unity was more important than sparking a political fight. Even if it meant denying an all-too-obvious reality.
After the 2014 Lindt Cafe siege, where two of the 18 hostages held by Man Haron Monis were killed after a 16-hour stand-off with police, Bill Shorten gave full support to Tony Abbott.
In 2019, when a right-wing Australian extremist murdered 51 Muslims at two mosques in New Zealand, Labor did not jump to question the government’s inaction on what had been growing security agency concerns about the right-wing threat in Australia.
Never has there been a time where politics has been played so blatantly, so openly at the expense of a terrified, traumatised community and the wider nation at large.
On social media, Aaron Smith has already comprehensively debunked some of the claims made by former Coalition Kooyong MP Josh Frydenberg, who announced his political comeback in the midst of a grief-stricken, but factually incorrect, speech in Bondi.
Sussan Ley immediately jumped to questioning what “values” migrants had brought to Australia, a continuation of a line she launched in November in the latest bid to save her political skin. Andrew Hastie, now considered the most likely Liberal leadership contender, was more blunt in his interview on Sky News, declaring: “The real question is, who are we letting into our country?”
The hateful, radicalised man who led Sunday’s abhorrent terror attack, moved to Australia from India 27 years ago, when Howard was prime minister. His son, who has been charged with terror offences, was born in Australia.
There were migrants who lost their lives on Bondi Beach on December 14, including a Holocaust survivor. Ahmed al-Ahmed is a migrant who risked his life disarming a gunman. Reuven Morrison, a migrant, lost his life saving others by throwing bricks at the gunman, giving people precious minutes and seconds to get away. Russian Jewish couple Boris and Sofia Gurman died trying to stop the attack before it started.
The question isn’t “who are we letting into our country?”, it’s “why are we letting grasping politicians spread further hate and division?”.
Howard has always accepted the plaudits of being the man who changed Australia’s gun laws, even as his stated plan was never fully implemented (like the national gun register). But he proved he was willing to burn that legacy by labelling a rational response to a deadly attack – the tightening of gun laws – a “distraction”.
Howard launched his attack despite admitting in the very same press conference he was “not aware” of what national cabinet had decided on gun laws, “apart from a brief dot-point presentation as I left an interview at the Sky studio”.
Ley has been cheered on in the media for equating the hundreds of thousands of Australians who marched against a genocide with the Bondi terror attack against the Jewish community.
No rational, compassionate person would argue that antisemitism isn’t an issue in Australia, or that there have not been people who have used the legitimate criticism of Israel’s actions against Palestinians as cover to target Jewish people for being Jewish.
But to claim that protesting a genocide (a finding supported by the United Nations, genocide scholars and experts and every major humanitarian organisation) is akin to bearing responsibility for Sunday’s terror attack is to break with reality.
To claim that recognising the state of Palestine, in common with the majority of world nations, means the Albanese government has blood on its hands, is beyond rationality.
And no one, despite the breathless coverage, has been able to explain how a further crackdown on universities would have thwarted two disturbed men who had, at least from the reporting, no known contact with universities.
Accusations began flying before any information was known, with fingers immediately being pointed where it best served established interests.
Jewish voices urging for an end to the false equation and for unity have been largely ignored, as has another former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who has also urged unity.
There is no going back to where we were before December 14. Not only was Australia’s shaky sense of safety irrevocably shattered, the social contract Australians relied on their politicians to uphold, to place the nation’s needs above politics, has been destroyed by the Coalition.
How any of this helps Australia’s Jewish community, let alone the nation as a whole, is apparently not something they care to ask themselves.
Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute
*The quotes have been omitted. They can be seen on x.
From a thoughtful Facebook post by Mick Farley
In the nine days since the Bondi mass shooting, almost every part of this tragedy has been dragged into someone’s political narrative. The victims, the community, the memorial, even the grief itself, all pulled apart and repurposed for point‑scoring.
All except one thing.
𝗔𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗻𝘆 𝗔𝗹𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗲𝘀𝗲’𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.
I don’t vote for his party, so this isn’t about political alignment. It’s about conduct. While others have used the grief of a shattered community to advance their own agendas, the Prime Minister has been the only public figure who hasn’t tried to weaponise this moment.
He didn’t centre himself.
He didn’t retaliate when he was booed.
He didn’t escalate.
He didn’t redirect the grief toward a geopolitical argument.
He didn’t turn a memorial for victims of a mass shooting into a platform for anything other than respect.
In a week where almost everyone else has tried to claim this tragedy for their own purposes, 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝗻‑𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲. And that restraint, that refusal to exploit a community’s pain, has shown more genuine concern for the victims than any of the loud, opportunistic commentary that’s followed.
𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁.
𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝗽𝗼𝗽𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿.
Sometimes leadership is measured not by what someone says, but by what they refuse to turn into a spectacle.
THE RETURN OF IDEALISM: “THE WEST WING” TRIUMPHANTLY RECLAIMS THE OVAL OFFICE!
In an era of political chaos and fractured narratives, the news we’ve all been waiting for has finally broken! The West Wing is making a triumphant return to our screens, serving as a powerful beacon of idealism in a world that needs it more than ever!
Original creator Aaron Sorkin is reportedly back at the helm, bringing his signature rapid-fire dialogue and unwavering belief in the power of public service. But this isn’t just a nostalgic trip; the revival promises to tackle the complex challenges of 2025 with the same intellect and heart that made the original a global phenomenon. Fans are buzzing: which iconic cast members are returning to the halls of the White House? Can the “Bartlet spirit” survive in today’s digital age? As the nation watches, this series is set to prove that leadership and integrity never go out of style!
I am enjoying watching The West Wing as an antidote to the current American political scene. Lawrence O’Donnel, who wrote some episodes, and also appeared in one, showed the reunion of the actors celebrating the 25th anniversary. This was held at the White House when Joe Biden was President.
I also enjoyed reading and reviewing Joshua Stein, The Binge Watcher’s Guide to The West Wing Seasons One and Two, Riverdale Avenue Books The Binge Watcher’s Guide, August 2024.
Reading The Binge Watcher’s Guide to The West Wing while also watching the 2024 Democratic National Convention could not have been more propitious. At the same time Joshua Stein deftly outlines the real stories associated with some of the episodes, the way in which he points to criticisms of some of the positions held by President Clinton and demonstrates the demeaning way in which women were treated, thereby undermining the dream that this series seemed to portray, another possibility of a better West Wing is unfurling in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. Together with the enthusiasm, joy, abounding optimism and inspiring speeches, there are words of caution and solid understanding of what it means to govern, to adopt the mantle of responsibilities of the presidency and West Wing staffers.
These realities are worth thinking about when reading The Binge Watcher’s Guide to the West Wing. As Michelle Obama opined, people running for office are not perfect, and cannot be expected to be. Committed Democrats must continue to work to win office, regardless of how well their contribution is acknowledged and publicly appreciated. Everyone cannot expect perfection from others – there is no time for pettiness. In this instance, she and others cautioned that working for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to become President and Vice President is too important for such minor concerns. In short, the dream and essential reality being offered by this team must be supported. So, at the same time as reading that our West Wing heroes and heroines can be less than perfect, that the president’s ideals and policy initiatives are not always the height of integrity, and squirming at the way in which women’s contributions and lives are not valued it is also worth maintaining the wonder with which we watched The West Wing in our unadulterated enthusiasm to believe in a better political way and integrity beyond that possible in an environment in which to introduce worthwhile polices winning is necessary.
The forward explains the writer’s purpose and his belief about what politics is and what it should be. He began writing in 2015 and is informed by the political events of 2016. There is a section on The West Wing 25 years later, that includes President Joe Biden’s decision not to run for a second term of the presidency. Each chapter covers one or more episodes. The introduction to Season 1 includes the Reagan quote about the problem of government, the cynicism invoked by that idea and The West Wing as a reaction. Before setting out the details of each episode, the introduction highlights some of the issues that will be covered and Stein’s responses to these.
The book is well organised, with enough information to provide the main storylines, the subtexts, whether these were based on some real event and both the episode arch and the contribution the episode made to the longer-term dramatic arches. Details of the personnel such as the major characters; recurring characters; and the production staff covering the creator and writer, the director and producer, executive producer, the musician and composer of the West Wing theme, and other major contributors to the production staff are included. Recurring plot lines are listed. References to ‘Sorkinisms’, in reference to the creator and writer are a feature of the book. The detail in each chapter covering one or more episodes makes a wonderful read, as do Stein’s comments and the references to the moral and political imperatives associated with each event.
Reading The Binge Watcher’s Guide to the West Wing Seasons One and Two was an engaging return to the series which to date I have watched twice. With this book’s illumination of events that I might have seen differently I look forward to watching The West Wing again. In particular, the term ‘patriot’ used by Ainslie (a Republican staff member) about her Democratic Party colleagues now resonates more strongly with me, as an Australian reader who was new to the term then but has now heard it used almost unremittingly in the context of current American politics. Ainslie’s observation was prescient, suggesting that although The West Wing may not have worn well in some ways, it still has something to say that is worthwhile. Joshua Stein’s book makes a valuable contribution to understanding the series and is important in the current American political environment. It is also engaging, fun and a temptation to sentimental reminiscences – yes, a thoroughly enjoyable read. Thank you, Joshua Stein.
International Women’s Writing Online Conference
Jocelynne Scutt sent me the following about an interesting online conference, Registration is open and all are welcome.
Registration Open: International Women’s Writing Online Conference
This online conference will be an interdisciplinary, cross-period, and global exploration of the role and impact of women’s writing, which is dedicated to the discussion of a broad range of women’s writing from any time, period, and place. We will discuss the popular and the literary; bestsellers and genres; poetry and prose; screen and script; writing for games and digital spaces; creative non-fiction; life-writing, biography, and memoir; and journalism and other forms of cultural production.
We will be thinking and talking about the pasts, presents, and futures of women’s writing on a global scale. We will explore women’s voices and artistic practices; the changing landscape of and about women’s writing; forms and mediums; the archival and the digital; textual and sexual politics; resistance and re-imaginings; interventions and intersections; and all of this across a wide range of disciplines, time periods, and texts.
We hope you will join us for this exciting event, which will bring together scholars, researchers, students, and enthusiasts to share their research, insights, and perspectives in an open and inclusive atmosphere.
Please register on one of the following links, which will also give you free membership of the new International Women’s Writing Association for 2025-26:
Excerpts from Dervla McTiernan’s email – more on her forthcoming book
In October we talked about the very first spark of the book (and you voted for your favourite idea … which, thankfully, was Three Boxes!), in November I took you through the edit, and this month we’ve reached the strange alchemy of covers, titles and blurbs.
Titles are everything.
Covers are everything too.
And then there’s the blurb (or cover copy, as it is sometimes called) … a few hundred words to explain a 100,000-word novel. A tiny smudge of a description that will hopefully (and oh that’s a small word for such big feelings!) make you, the reader, excited to read.
Here’s mine:
Someone’s been watching. Someone’s been waiting.
Alexis Turner walks into the police station to report an assault. By the end of the day, she is nowhere to be found.
Soon after she disappears, three identical packages arrive at three very different doors: a respected psychologist’s home, a socialite’s mansion, and a struggling single father’s run-down apartment. Inside, each gift is perfectly tailored to its recipient — and each will tear apart the life of its intended victim.
Detective Sergeant Judith Lee is smart and experienced, but this is no ordinary case. Someone with intimate knowledge of their targets is orchestrating these attacks. Someone who knows exactly how to hurt each victim where they’re most vulnerable. And she’s convinced that somehow, it connects back to Alexis Turner.
As she races to uncover the connection between three seemingly unrelated people, Judith discovers she’s no longer just investigating the game – she’s being forced to play.
God, it’s both terrifying and exciting to be sending that out into the world. What do you think? Does it match the original idea? I think it’s pretty close, though Judith wasn’t in my mind when I started out. If you picked this book up in a book shop, would you want to read it?
After the blurb, of course, comes the cover and the title.
As you know, I’ve been calling the book either Three Boxes, or The Box Book, both of which are very much working titles. I tend to put off the process of choosing a title for as long as possible, because it’s so difficult.
Together, a title and a cover need to convey: genre, tone, story
It is amazingly hard to come up with a title and a cover design that will do all of that. The cover needs to tell you what genre it is, so it needs to be similar to other covers, but it needs to be different enough that you, the reader, will notice it, and it needs to shout enough about the story that you, the reader, will want to pick it up! And the title needs to be cool and fresh and tell you something about the story and not be the same title as the hundreds of thousands of titles that have come before. Oof!
For this book, we’re going to have one cover for the US, Canada, Ireland and the UK, and a very different cover for Australia and New Zealand. It’s a little too soon to show you the Australia / New Zealand cover, but I’m excited to be able to share with you what’s happening in the US and Canada, as well as in the UK and Ireland.
I can’t tell you how many versions of various covers we went through before we landed on this. It probably looks deceptively simple, but believe me, every element of this cover has been considered and debated and revised about ten times. I think it’s the right cover for the US/Canada and Ireland/UK right now, and it hits all of the key elements (genre, tone and story)
But I’m curious about your thoughts! First of all, how important is a cover and a title to you when you buy a book? When was the last time you picked up a book in a book shop from an author who was totally new to you, on the strength of the cover alone? And what does my US cover say to you, about this book? Do you think it’s a good fit for the story I’ve been telling you about? Vote in the poll, or drop me an email and let me know.
In January I’ll be able to show you the Australian / New Zealand cover, which is very different, and it will be interesting to hear your thoughts on which one you prefer.
Cindy Lou wanders into Civic and finds a fun Mexican restaurant
Fonda is certainly not Wahaca, the Mexican restaurant I visited in Paddington Square a couple of years ago. However, it has a charm of its own – lovely staff, pleasant seating, even though it is on a busy corner, and food which is flavoursome and plentiful. And, it is very reasonably priced. I enjoyed the evening.
Creamery & Co
This is a pleasant coffee shop in Gunghalin. The staff are friendly and made my coffee to perfection. There is a good range of pastries, but the ricotta and spinach roll was my choice on this occasion.
Christmas Eve at The Duxton
A snack at The Duxton was a nice pre-Christmas Day occasion. It was sunny with a slight breeze; the service was quick and the food just right.
Stephen Rötzsch Thomas Disney’s Animated Classics A Comprehensive Guide Pen & Sword| White owl, September 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley and Pen & Sword for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
Snow White features throughout this book, beginning with the author having received the video as a present, watching it almost under duress, and later becoming an admirer. This admiration is based on the craft exhibited in producing the film, and its role in introducing the wonderful world of cartoon artistry that moves the narrative along, chapter to chapter. The development of Walt Disney’s animated works is traced from its beginning, with particular attention to Disney’s involvement until his death in 1966 and the impact of new leaders. Cartooning provides the backbone to the narrative, alongside the host of elements that are essential to generating Disney’s work. Many of the shorter works and films are described in detail. This book is a funny, informative, and nostalgic ode to Disney’s animated classics.
At the same time as telling the story of Disney, his close colleagues, the broad range of workers responsible for producing the works, and the films themselves, there are some personal interjections – some a little awkward, others warm and humorous, and yet others breathing a strong waft of nostalgia at the same time as acknowledging the value of remakes that abandon racist aspects of the older versions. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Margo Donohue Fever The Complete History of Saturday Night Fever Kensington Publishing, August 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
This is a magnificently detailed account of the personnel, cultural environment, and film history that brought into being Saturday Night Fever. Overwhelming at times, this book is worth returning to repeatedly, for anyone interested in the film, but also for students of film history. Saturday Night Fever was produced in two versions. One was suitable for a wider audience, the other was grittier, an honest account of the Brooklyn world in Tony Manero swung his paint can as he walked to work in the opening scene. For me, the fall from the Brooklyn Bridge was a focal point of the film. Grease, also starring John Travolta and produced a year later, like Saturday Night Fever, had a captivating soundtrack, which sometimes leads to thinking of the films in tandem. However, this is misleading. Grease was delightful and easy viewing. Saturday Night Fever was not, and Margo Donohue’s history shows how it was saved from becoming only the lighter version. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Emily Bleeker Good Days Bad Days Lake Union Publishing, October 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
Emily Bleeker’s novel resonates well beyond its conclusion. She has packed so much into this story of a woman seeking her past, and an explanation for her banishment from her home as a teenager. Charlotte returns home at her father’s request to clear it of the hoarding that has always been her mother’s priority. Greg’s has been in enabling and protecting Betty, leaving Charlotte with questions, an inability to forgive her parents and self-protection that impacts her own mothering.
This novel moves between protagonists and time. Charlotte, known now as Charlie and to her parents in the past as Lottie, begins the story. Her return home and the immensity of Betty’s hoarding, visiting Betty who is now in care for her dementia and, while trying to clear her childhood home of the accumulation of years of belongings, assembling their history is a compelling and poignant story. In this narrative Charlotte’s own family life is also questioned, alongside her negative feelings about her parents. Her feelings toward her father who put her mother and her hoarding first fluctuate, as do those toward Betty for whom a good day in medical terms means rejection of Charlie, and a bad day the appearance of Betty who sees Charlie as Laura a friend from the past with whom she can exchange giggling discussions of girlhood. She finds comfort in the Betty for whom she is no longer the daughter that destroyed their family. Greg’s recall of the past is enlightening – about his relationship with Betty, his daughter and his history which encompasses both Betty’s television past, and his own. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Polling and focus group data show voters across parties feel crushed by rising costs, even as Trump dismisses affordability concerns as a “hoax” that contradicts Americans’ lived reality.
Guest article by Margie Omero, a principal at the Democratic polling firm GBAO
President Trump is known for having a pretty deceptive relationship with the truth. He calls things hoaxes that are true, and calls things true that are hoaxes. His latest claim is affordability is a “hoax” – but polls show he couldn’t be more wrong.It doesn’t matter how you ask it – voters are deeply, acutely worried about costs. It’s by far the top issue voters say Washington should work on.
Almost half – even a plurality of Trump voters – say the cost of living is “the worst I can remember it ever being.” And digging deeper, voters feel squeezed across the board; on housing, utility prices, food, and health care, over 70% say the cost of each is going up. Economic indicators confirm voters’ perceptions; consumer confidence is down, the lowest level since April, while inflation continues to climb.
Yet Trump’s declaration America is in a “golden age,” where people are “doing better than you’ve ever done” – is completely at odds with voters’ reality. Two-thirds of Americans feel the country is “on the wrong track,” including three in ten (29%) Republicans. Gallup found just 21% think the economy is going well.
Come the holidays, these struggles seem likely to get even worse. Navigator Research shows nearly half of Americans (47%) plan to cut back for the holidays. And Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index has dropped to a 17-month low, with sharply lower holiday spending than predicted a few short months ago.
Focus groups bring to light this widespread national sourness. In groups I’ve conducted over the last few months for AARP, Navigator, and others, people have vivid examples of how they’re trying to save money, like using buy-now-pay-later apps to afford dog food, considering moving to another state to better afford utility bills, renting out part of their house through AirBnB, selling off many of their possessions, buying and selling Pokemon cards, or even moving in with an ex-boyfriend.
This economic pessimism mirrors Trump’s own downturn. His Trump’s ratings on the economy have fallen dramatically since he took office, across polling outlets. Clear majorities – of both Democrats and Republicans – say “inflation and the cost of living” should be Washington’s top priority – the top in a long list of 22 items (respondents could pick five). Yet when given the same list, and asked which were Trump’s and Congressional Republicans’ top five priorities, inflation ranked 8th.When Trump does have policies allegedly aimed at addressing the economy and inflation, Americans say they are more worried than not. Majorities are concerned about tariffs, or about cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, and more oppose repealing Obamacare than support it.
With this backdrop, it’s no wonder Trump’s own voters are turning on him. Navigator Research shows a steady, sizable share of Trump voters (about 15% of them) say they “regret” their vote, with even more saying they are “disappointed” in him. There are enough Trump regretters to impact the 2026 midterms, either by voting Democratic or staying home altogether. We’ve already seen this in action this year in Democratic overperformance in races across the country.
By shouting things like “our prices are coming down tremendously,” Trump is telling voters to “reject the evidence of their eyes and ears.” But this is 2025, not 1984, and voters aren’t buying it. There’s only one real “con job” right now, and it’s not Americans’ worries about affordability.
By: Margie Omero, Principal at the Democratic polling firm GBAO, has nearly 30 years studying public opinion. Her clients have included Senator Ruben Gallego (AZ), Governors Tony Evers (WI) and Laura Kelly (KS), and organizations like AARP, Navigator Research, the New York Times Opinion Page, and American Bridge’s Working Class Project.
The outlines of a sustainable Ukraine peace deal inch into view
Trump’s tilt toward Russia isn’t helping, but there’s still a path to a reasonable endgame. December 9, 2025
Here’s a simple description of what peace should look like in Ukraine: a sovereign nation, its borders protected by international security guarantees, that is part of the European Union and rebuilding its economy with big investments from the United States and Europe.
For all President Donald Trump’s hardball negotiating tactics, and his inexplicable sympathy for the Russian aggressor, such a deal seems to be getting closer, according to what I’m hearing from American, Ukrainian and European officials.
Trump could still blow it by squeezing President Volodymyr Zelensky and his European supporters so hard they choose to fight on despite the awful cost. That would be bad for everyone. This is a moment for Trump to reassure Ukraine and Europe, not try to bludgeon them into a settlement.
Trump’s tilt toward the Kremlin in the National Security Strategy released by the White House last week has complicated negotiations. He seems to want to stand equidistant between a democratic Europe and an autocratic Russia, “to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states,” the document says. That evenhandedness between friend and foe makes no sense, strategically or morally — and it genuinely worries Europe.
Despite this shaky foundation, the Trump peace effort has some promise. U.S. negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are business tycoons, not diplomats. But they seem to recognize that the best protection for Ukraine is a combination of binding security guarantees and future economic prosperity. And they know the package will fail unless Zelensky can sell it to a brave but exhausted country.
The negotiating package involves three documents, a Ukrainian official told me: the peace plan, security guarantees and an economic recovery plan. The talks are far from over, with Ukraine and European supporters planning to release a joint set of amendments Wednesday. But here are some of the ideas being explored, as described to me this week by U.S. and Ukrainian officials:
• Ukraine would join the European Union as early as 2027. This rapid accession worries some E.U. powers. But the Trump administration thinks it can overcome opposition from Hungary, which has been Kyiv’s biggest E.U. opponent. Membership would foster trade and investment. But perhaps most important, it would force Ukraine to control its pernicious culture of corruption in state-owned businesses.
At bottom, this war has been about whether Ukraine can become a European country. President Vladimir Putin detests that idea, with his mystical belief in the oneness of Russia and Ukraine. Quick E.U. membership for Kyiv looks to me like victory.
• The United States would provide what are described as “Article 5-like” security guarantees to protect Ukraine if Russia violates the pact. Ukraine wants the U.S. to sign such an agreement and have Congress ratify it; European nations would sign separate security guarantees. A U.S.-Ukrainian working group is exploring how the details would work — and how fast Ukraine and its allies could respond to any Russian breach.
The reliability of the U.S. guarantees is arguably undermined by language in the National Security Strategy that seems to erode the NATO alliance, on which the guarantees are modeled. But the Trump team says it’s committed to continuing U.S. intelligence support for Ukraine, which is the sine qua non of security.
• Ukraine’s sovereignty would be protected from any Russian veto. But negotiators still seem to be struggling with delicate issues like limits on Ukraine’s army. There’s talk of raising an initial U.S. proposal for a 600,000-soldier army to 800,000, which is roughly what Ukraine would have anyway, postwar. But Kyiv refuses any formal constitutional cap, as Russia wants. Whatever the nominal size of the army, officials say there might be supplements like the national guard or other support forces
• A demilitarized zone would be established along the entire ceasefire line, all the way from the Donetsk province in the northeast to the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in the south. Behind this DMZ would be a deeper zone in which heavy weapons would be excluded. This line would be closely monitored, much like the DMZ that divides North and South Korea.
• “Land swaps” are an inescapable part of the deal, but Ukraine and the U.S. are still haggling over how the lines would be drawn. Russia demands Ukraine give up the roughly 25 percent of Donetsk it still holds; the Trump team argues that Ukraine is likely to lose much of that in battle over the next six months, in any event, and should make concessions now to spare casualties.
U.S. negotiators have tried various formulas to make this concession more palatable for Zelensky. One idea is that the withdrawal zone would be demilitarized. Zelensky insisted Monday that he has “no legal right” to cede territory to Russia. One way to finesse this issue is the Korea model — to this day, South Korea claims a legal right to the entire peninsula and North Korea asserts the same.
• The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, would no longer be under Russian occupation. Negotiators are discussing the possibility that the United States might take over running the facility. Strange as it may sound, that appeals to some Ukrainian officials because it would provide an American tripwire against Russian aggression.
• The Trump administration would seek to foster investment and economic development in Ukraine. One source of funds would be the more than $200 billion in Russian assets now frozen in Europe. Trump’s negotiators already proposed making $100 billion of that stash available to Ukraine for reparations. The amount might be increased.
A more durable engine for reconstruction would be U.S. investment. U.S. officials are talking with Larry Fink, chief executive of the financial giant BlackRock, about reviving its plan for a Ukraine Development Fund that would attract $400 billion for reconstruction. The World Bank would also be involved.
Trump, to be sure, wants similar investment and reconstruction initiatives for Russia. The premise for Kushner and Witkoff, both devout capitalists, is that countries that trade and prosper don’t make war. The rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s confounds that optimism, as does the growing menace of China today. But it’s still a reasonable formula.
Rather than trying to squeeze Zelensky into a deal, the Trump negotiators should work with European allies to create a package of security guarantees and economic incentives that’s attractive enough that Ukrainians would be willing to swallow the bitter pill of giving up the slice of Donetsk that Russia has failed to conquer. Otherwise, Ukrainians will keep fighting.
The biggest mistake Trump can make is to insist that it’s now or never. Diplomacy doesn’t work that way, and good business doesn’t, either. As Trump observed several decades ago, “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.”
Trump should make a reasonable deal that will last. Otherwise, he might end up with nothing, and this miserable conflict could enter an even more destructive phase.
The need for serious people to lead a country
Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American <heathercoxrichardson@substack.com>
“For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being president of this country was to a certain extent about character. And although I have not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I’ve been here three years and three days. And I can tell you, without hesitation, being president of this country is entirely about character.”
In 1995 the late Rob Reiner— who, along with his wife Michele Singer Reiner, lost his life yesterday— directed The American President, written by Aaron Sorkin. In the film, President Andrew Shepherd, a widower, is facing a challenge from Republican presidential hopeful Senator Bob Rumson, who attacks Shepherd by focusing on the activist past of the woman he is dating, lawyer and lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade.The final scene of the film is a speech by the president rejecting the pretended patriotism of his partisan attacker, who is cynically manipulating voters to gain power. It is a meditation on what it means to be the president of the United States.“
For the record, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU,” Shepherd says to reporters at a press conference, “but the more important question is, why aren’t you, Bob? Now, this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question, why would a senator, his party’s most powerful spokesman, and a candidate for president choose to reject upholding the Constitution?”
“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve got to want it bad, ‘cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say: You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as a land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now, show me that. Defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.”
“I’ve known Bob Rumson for years, and I’ve been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn’t get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t get it. Bob’s problem is that he can’t sell it. We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only, making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.
“That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.”
“We’ve got serious problems, and we need serious people. And if you want to talk about character, Bob, you better come at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card.… This is a time for serious people, Bob, and your 15 minutes are up.”
Australian Politics
Anthony Albanese condemns Bondi Beach terror attack as ‘act of evil antisemitism’
Story by Clare Armstrong
Anthony Albanese has condemned the Bondi Beach terror attack as an “act of evil antisemitism” targeting Australia’s Jewish community, declaring the nation will never submit to “division, violence or hatred”.
The prime minister vowed to “eradicate” the hate that fuelled the deadly mass shooting at a Chanukah by the Sea event on Sunday evening and defended his government’s response to rising antisemitism in Australia.
“The evil that was unleashed at Bondi Beach today is beyond anyone’s worst nightmare,” he said.
Fifteen victims plus one of the two gunmen were killed in the attack and a further 38 were injured after two men opened fire at a park near Bondi Beach, where people were gathered to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah.
Speaking in Canberra after calling an urgent meeting of cabinet’s National Security Committee (NSC), Mr Albanese said he believed a “moment of national unity” would arise from the “vile act of violence” and Australians would embrace Jewish members of the community.
“There are nights that tear at the nation’s soul. In this moment of darkness, we must be each other’s light,” he said.
“An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian, and every Australian tonight will be like me, devastated by this attack on our way of life.”
Mr Albanese said his first thoughts were with Australians in the “terrible early hours of their grief”, for those injured, and the first responders and members of the public who rushed to help as the attack unfolded.
“We have seen Australians today run toward danger in order to help others,” he said.
“These Australians are heroes and their bravery has saved lives.”
Mr Albanese said Australia stood with its Jewish community and he reaffirmed its right to be “proud of who you are and what you believe”.
“You should never have had to endure the loss that you have suffered today,” he said.
“You should never know the fear that you know.”
At the NSC meeting on Sunday, ASIO director-general Mike Burgess briefed senior ministers on the security situation in the wake of the attack.
Mr Burgess advised Australia’s terror threat level remained at “probable” — the third highest of five possible ratings — meaning there was a 50 per cent chance of an attack in the next 12 months.
He said ASIO was assisting police with their ongoing investigation, as well as looking into the identities of the attackers.
“We’ll be looking to see if there’s anyone in the community that has similar intent,” he said.
“It’s important to stress at this point, we have no indications to that fact, but that is something we have active investigations on.”
Australian Federal Police acting deputy commissioner for national security Nigel Ryan said the declaration of the Bondi attack as a terror incident triggered “specialist powers” for the investigation.
Mr Albanese said his government took antisemitism “seriously” and “continued to take all the advice from the security agencies” on the issue.
In July the federal government released its initial response to a report by Australia’s antisemitism special envoy Jillian Segal to combat antisemitism. However, it is still considering the recommendations.
Asked if the attack would impact those considerations, Mr Albanese said the government was “continuing to work” on the issues raised, including a request for additional funding for security.
“This is an incredibly tough time for the community to deal with this. It’s important that they don’t deal with it alone,” he said.
Following the attack on Sunday, Ms Segal released a statement saying the “worst fear” of the Australian Jewish community had become a reality.
“This did not come without warning,” she said.
“An attack on a peaceful Jewish celebration is an attack on our national character and our way of life. Australia must defend both.”
There has been an outpouring of support from politicians and public figures, with Governor-General Sam Mostyn saying Australians were in “shock, distress and sadness”.
King Charles said he and Queen Camilla were “appalled and saddened by the most dreadful antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish people attending Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach”.
“Our hearts go out to everyone who has been affected so dreadfully, including the police officers who were injured while protecting members of their community. We commend the police, emergency services and members of the public whose heroic actions no doubt prevented even greater horror and tragedy.”
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said Australians were in “deep mourning” over the “hateful violence” that struck at Bondi.
“My heart is with Australia’s Jewish community tonight, particularly those in the eastern suburbs of Sydney — people I know well,” she said.
Greens leader senator Larissa Waters said the targeting of the Jewish community was “reprehensible and intolerable”.
“My heart is with the Jewish community who are grieving loved ones, and feeling rocked and fearful,” she said.
Independent MP Allegra Spender, whose electorate of Wentworth includes Bondi, said this was “not the Australia that we know and love”.
“This is horrifying,” she said.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott described the events as an “absolute atrocity” and “massive escalation of the hatred directed at Australia’s Jewish community”.
NSW senator Dave Sharma, a former ambassador to Israel, labelled the attack an “appalling and grotesque act of violence seemingly directed at our Jewish community”.
Hero Bondi bystander undergoes surgery to remove bullets
Ahmed el Ahmed, the hero bystander who helped disarm one of the Bondi gunmen, is recovering in St George Hospital.
December 15, 2025 — 2.45pm
Ahmed Al Ahmed was caught on dramatic footage sneaking up on one of the terrorists and wrestling away his rifle. The shopkeeper engaged in a brief scuffle, ultimately overpowering the gunman and taking the weapon. As the attacker lay on the ground, Al Ahmed momentarily aimed the gun at him but chose not to fire. The gunman staggered away, and Al Ahmed calmly set the rifle against a tree. Moments later, he was injured when another gunman on a nearby bridge opened fire, wounding his hand and shoulder. The unarmed civilian, aided by a passer-by who hurled a rock at the fleeing attacker, is now recovering from surgery.
Aussies rush to give blood after horror of Bondi attacks
Australians have responded in huge numbers after the Australian Red Cross and NSW Premier Chris Minns issued an urgent plea for more blood donations following Sunday’s Bondi terror attack.
The toll from the shooting rose to 16, including a 10-year-old girl and a 40-year-old man, who both died in hospital on Monday.
One of the shooters, 50-year-old Sajid Akram was also killed. The other, his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram, is among the injured in hospital.
There are another 41 people in hospitals across Sydney, including eight in critical conditions.
On Monday – after it was revealed hospitals were operating at a trauma level – Minns urged people across NSW to give blood if they could.
“If you’re looking for something practical to do, you could give blood,” he said.
“We saw extraordinary scenes from NSW hospitals last night, emergency departments at the drop of a hat were in the process of saving scores of lives.
“They did an incredible job but they need your help. They need blood and if you’re thinking about doing an act of public service in the coming 24 hours, I urge you to contact the Red Cross and do that piece of public-mindedness, that piece of public spiritedness.”
Sydneysiders rushed to respond, with the wait to donate at Red Cross Lifeblood’s Town Hall centre leaping to two hours before lunchtime on Monday.
“We are taking as much as we can,” centre manager Edgar Parica told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Minns said later on Monday the “massive lines” and record level of inquiry were encouraging.
“Please be patient if you like to make that act of civic duty, but it’s warmly welcomed and it will go to a good cause,” he said.
Lifeblood’s website had also crashed.
Those outside NSW can also help. Lifeblood executive director of donor experience Cath Stone said it had issued “several life-threatening orders” after the shootings.
“Due to the additional blood needs in Sydney, Lifeblood is transferring blood products from multiple states to support the need in NSW,” she said.
Elsewhere, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was to host an emergency meeting of national cabinet following the terror attacks.
It will follow a meeting of the national security committee, made up of Albanese, senior ministers and representatives from AFP and ASIO, on Monday afternoon.
“What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location,” he said on Monday.
Albanese did not directly respond to criticisms from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who accused the government of “doing nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia”.
Special envoy against antisemitism Jillian Segal said the messaging and education about Jewish hatred and how it harmed the community has not been sufficient.
“Unfortunately, I have to say that I’ve been holding my breath, fearing that something like this would happen, because it hasn’t come without warning,” she told ABC radio.
Albanese said Monday was a moment for national unity, and vowed to stamp out antisemitism.
Labor MP Josh Burns, who is Jewish, said legislative responses were not the only means way to do that, and that there had been a legitimisation of targeting institutions and the community.
“This is something that, especially on the progressive side of politics, we need to confront head on,” he told the ABC.
Former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the terror attack was a tragedy of unimaginable proportions and criticised Albanese’s “hollow words”.
“Who is going to be accountable for this? Who is going to take personal responsibility for this,” he told Sky News.
“It starts with our Prime Minister, and it goes down through his ministers and everybody of responsibility, who has failed in their public duty to protect our citizens.”
Foreign Minister Penny Wong spoke to her Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa’ar, who told her of Israel’s “pain and sorrow over the deadly anti-Semitic terrorist attack”.
Vigil in London pays tribute to Bondi attack victims
Attendees at the vigil cheered for a “hero” who was filmed tackling a gunman. Photo: AAP
About 100 people have gathered at a vigil outside Australia House in London to pay tribute to the victims of a terrorist attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney.
Yisroel Lew, a rabbi at Chabad of Bloomsbury and Marylebone, spoke at the gathering organised by Stop the Hate UK on Sunday night.
“Just a small amount of light, a small good deed, can drive away a long darkness and that has always been the Jewish response, that remains our response,” Lew said.
“After hearing what happened this morning, the first thought was: how can we get more light, how can we bring more light into the world, how can we have more Hanukkah events?
Tonight and over the coming days, we are holding the Jewish community close.
For the 8 nights of Chanukah, Jewish families around the world fill their windows with light – something that has been passed down through generations.
Tonight, I am lighting a candle in solidarity with the Australian Jewish community.
Because when antisemitism and hate rears its ugly head, we don’t shy away.
We will confront the darkness with light. Together.
Penny Wong – Senator for SA’s post
The Prime Minister encouraged all Australians to light a candle tonight to honour those killed in the horrific terror attack at Bondi Beach.
Chanukah, which features the lighting of candles across eight nights is meant to be a festival of hope, resilience and light triumphing over darkness.
We stand together to reject terrorism, antisemitism and violence.
And we stand with the Jewish community as we mourn those lost and hope for those injured – including emergency services and community members who have shown us the best of Australia.
Candles in Canberra
Flag announcement: Bondi Beach Incident, 14 December 2025
At the request of the Prime Minister, the Hon Anthony Albanese MP, flags across Australia are to be flown at half-mast to honour the victims of the tragic events at Bondi Beach, Sydney, on 14 December 2025.
As a mark of mourning and respect and in accordance with protocol, the Australian National Flag should be flown at half-mast on Monday, 15 December 2025 from all buildings and establishments occupied by Australian Government departments and affiliated agencies. Other organisations are welcome to participate…
Your assistance is appreciated.
Commonwealth Flag Officer
Annabel Crabb
Please please please let these be the images that define us today. A blood donation site groaning under immense traffic. A man putting himself in harm’s way for the sake of strangers. A surf life saver sprinting barefoot to the scene with supplies. There will be so many of these big and small moments, most of them unseen, unrecorded, the daily ephemera of human interactions that are not defined or inspired by symbols, secular hatreds, demagogues of one stripe or another. We shouldn’t look away from these things or the evils that unspool from organised hatred. Not for a second. But neither should we let them overwhelm the warmer, truer thing, which is disorganised, impulsive human decency. Because otherwise we’ll go mad.
Love, love, love to all who are suffering.
Rabbi Jeff Kamins and Bilal Rauf, advisor to the Australian National Imams Council, embraced at the vigil. (ABC News: Kris Flanders)
Across the span of his decades-long career in Hollywood, Rob Reiner directed a host of beloved films—the kind you watch again and again, finding something new in them each time.
As a director, Reiner had immense creative range, from his feature directorial debut mockumentary This is Spinal Tap to the coming-of-age drama Stand By Me to the Oscar-nominated courtroom thriller A Few Good Men to the iconic romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally… and beyond. But what united his work was its deep humanity: a heartfelt humor and tenderness that coursed through each story regardless of genre.
As we mourn the tragic recent deaths of Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, his wife of 36 years, we look back on some of the many culture-defining films from the Emmy-winning actor and director’s career.
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Reiner’s feature directorial debut, This is Spinal Tap, is a mockumentary comedy film that follows Spinal Tap, a once-great English heavy metal band, as they embark on a U.S. tour to promote their new album. Known for its spot-on satire of rock documentaries and iconic quotes, Reiner picked up the story again in 2025, with Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. – Anna Grace Lee
Stand By Me (1986)
Based on a Stephen King novella, Stand By Me stars Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell as four friends who set out to find the body of a boy who was hit by a train. It captures the bittersweet in-between of being a kid, taking place on Labor Day weekend in 1959, as the boys are about to start junior high. As Gordie says, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?” – A.G.L.
The Princess Bride (1987)
Full of endlessly quotable lines, The Princess Bride is a fairytale adventure comedy that follows Buttercup, one of the world’s most beautiful women, and her one true love, Wesley, as he must rescue her from a forced marriage to an evil prince. – A.G.L.
When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Written by Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally… is one of the best romantic comedies of all time. Harry and Sally are friends who meet on a cross-country drive from college at the University of Chicago to New York City, and later become something much more. Known for its iconic Katz’s Delicatessen scene (in which Reiner’s real-life mother, the actress Estelle Reiner, delivers the much-repeated line, “I’ll have what she’s having”), it’s simply a perfect film. It is also the genesis of another love story: that of Reiner and his wife, Michele. They met on the set of the film, and falling in love with her inspired Reiner to change the ending of the film so that Harry and Sally would end up together. – A.G.L.
Misery (1990)
It’s never easy to adapt a bestselling book into a film that captures what made the original so popular, but Reiner more than completed that assignment with his 1990 adaptation of Stephen King’s 1987 novel Misery. A screenplay by William Goldman and a star-making turn from Kathy Bates as sadistic stalker Annie Wilkes made this psychological horror film iconic, but none of it would have come together into such a chilling portrait of fandom gone wrong without Reiner’s subtle yet increasingly tension-laden direction. – Emma Specter
A Few Good Men (1992)
This legal drama is best known for being one of Aaron Sorkin’s earliest and most popular projects (indeed, the 1992 film was an adaptation of Sorkin’s 1989 play of the same name), but it also launched a partnership between Sorkin and Reiner that continued three years later when Reiner signed on to direct Sorkin’s political rom-com The American President. Upon rewatching A Few Good Men, it’s easy to see why the two men worked so well together; Sorkin’s dialogic pyrotechnics are offset by the genuine curiosity about human behavior and group dynamics that Reiner displayed behind the camera. – E.S.
Flipped (2010)
This late-aughts love story about two neighbors missing—and then finding—their moment for romance was yet another example of Reiner’s facility with the romantic-comedy genre. Although it didn’t receive the kind of universal acclaim that When Harry Met Sally did (to be fair, what film ever could?), Flipped saw a resurgence in popularity in recent years as viewers came to appreciate its naturalistic dialogue and credit it with cult-favorite status. – E.S.
Taran Armstrong Behind the Mirror Inside the World of Big Brother Sourcebooks (non-fiction) Sourcebooks, November 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
Taran Armstrong’s densely detailed and analytical work lies as much in his perceptive approach as his attention to the format, the participants, their strategies, and their personalities. At first glance I was impressed with his knowledge of the workings of the Big Brother format and the way in which participants were able to strategize to achieve their aim of winning at best or at least forcing out those they did not want to win. However, to retain interest in a book with such a specialist approach and detailed account of episodes, strategies and personalities, requires more. Taran Armstrong grew up with Big Brother, and he links its process year after year, with changes of participants, producers’ interventions and audience and media reactions, to his own maturing and changing attitudes and situations. These links are sometimes poignant and at times comic, but always insightful. So, the world behind the mirror becomes a reflection of Armstrong and American societal changes, as well as the enclosed world of the Big Brother house.
I came to the book having watched, written about, * and listened to contemporaries, and observed the media and political fallout, along with the changes as Big Brother Australia adapted to falling ratings. At times, while reading about the amazing strategies adopted by those American participants determined to win, I wondered whether my observations of the Australian competitors with what seemed far less strategizing were naïve. However, although this might be the case, it is also possible that the different formats and levels of competitiveness in the American and Australian models also had an impact. The American model relied only participants’ voting throughout the process. In the Australian Big Brother house, participants voted for the people they would like nominated, and the three most nominated were then subjected to a public phone in vote. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
*’It’s Time to Go!’ ‘You’re Fired’: Australian Big Brother (2005) and Britain’s The Apprentice (2014) in Women, Law and Culture Conformity, Contradiction and Conflict, ed. Jocelynne A. Scutt, Plagrave Macmillan, 2016.
Thank you, NetGallery, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
This is an enticing read, with Rear Window providing the core around which a host of detailed and information about areas which usually would be only of secondary interest are woven. However, here so much becomes of direct interest because of the deft linking of fields of interest beyond matters directly related to the production of Rear Window. Naturally, there is a focus on the set. Its role in achieving Hitchcock’s aim, both artistically and foiling the intransigence of the Production Code Administration Office using the Hays Code guidelines, is intrinsic to the work. However, not only Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart’s roles, before and after Rear Window, are discussed. Detail about their personalities, aspirations, and activities before and after the film is revealed. Directly relevant to the film, is Kelly’s wardrobe – the costumes, what they signified, and what happened to them. And so too, is the significance of the costume designer, Edith Head. However, her professional status, past and after Rear Window is also explored. Speculation about Hitchcock’s treatment of women, particularly Tippi Hedren, and the impact of #Me Too is covered, along with Hitchcock’s relationships with other cast members and crew. In this book, Alfred Hitchcock and his directorial ability, the actors and the script is foremost. However, by the time the book is finished the analysis of Rear Window has served to provide exceptional insight into the world in which the film was made, its past and the future. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Why Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’ Mirrors Today’s Social Media Age
In its exploration of themes like paranoia, voyeurism, and loneliness, Hitchcock’s Rear Window strikes a familiar chord with the social media climate we live in today.
Rear Window Alfred Hitchcock Paramount 1 September 1954
Throughout Alfred Hitchcock’s lengthy career, the 1950s were undoubtedly his most glamorous era in filmmaking. With Hollywood’s biggest stars in Technicolor and carefully crafted sequences that would have film scholars talking for decades, Hitchcock entered a new peak in visual storytelling. Rear Window, now approaching the 70th anniversary of its production, is a standout film of that decade with a storyline that still holds relevance in the 21st century. Usingthe camera as narrator, Rear Window carefully weaves a terrifying thriller through a multi-layered love story. Released in 1954, Rear Window is widely regarded as one of the most accessible and modern of Hitchcock’s 53 films.
These days, Hitchcock’s legacy hardly requires an introduction, but in the early ’50s, he was an outside-of-the-box filmmaker beginning to revolutionize sound and frame editing by putting himself in the audience’s place. Rear Window was released during a trying time to a post-World War II public when fears of Communism and nuclear war generated anxiety in America. Gender stereotypes were tightly intact, and it would be over a decade before the women’s liberation movement shook up the patriarchy. Yet, when re-analyzing Rear Window in our times, it still feels as fresh as the day it was made. The paranoia and isolation experienced by the central character reflect those feelings of loneliness and mistrust in current society. Distortions of social media further mirror Rear Window’s themes, which remain universal in America.
Another reason Rear Window retains its relevance is partially due to the imperfection and relatability of its main character. J.B. Jefferies, known to his friends as Jeff (played by the reliably affable Jimmy Stewart, who even gives this curmudgeon appeal), is a flawed anti-hero. As a combat photographer who’d always been on the go, he’s now confined to a wheelchair after breaking his leg. (In an early scene, he explains the cast on his left leg is a result of getting too close for comfort with his camera at an auto race.) Jeff spends his days of recovering, staring aimlessly through the back window of his Greenwich Village apartment into the courtyard below—and into the windows of his neighbors.
Enter Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly), a glamourous career girl of Madison Avenue who’s mad about Jeff. Though deeply frustrated at his lack of commitment, she doesn’t back down easily, even if it means going out on a limb to show him her dangerous side. Jeff also receives daily visits from Stella (played by the spunky Thelma Ritter), his nurse who serves as the voice of reason. She does her best to convince him he’s making a mistake by casting Lisa aside. Flabbergasted at the thought of Jeff ending things with her because she’s “too perfect”, Stella sighs, “I can hear you now: “Get out of my life, you wonderful woman. You’re too good for me.”
Jeff, who seems too wrapped up in himself to take Lisa seriously, spends the entirety of Rear Window observing different walks of life through a camera lens at his back window, the same point of view that Hitchcock cleverly limits the audience. Bored to tears, he spies on neighbors, inventing stories about their lives. The curiosities in this intimate setting fulfill Jeff’s overactive imagination. The audience becomes one with him as he leaps from one conclusion to another about the narrow view he has of people he doesn’t know. His act of observing others from a secure, unseen distance isn’t unlike our online world today. See Further Commentary and Articles arising from Books* and continued longer articles as noted in the blog. for the complete article.
DreamBig/Shutterstock, The Conversation
‘Don’t tell me!’ Why some people love spoilers – and others will run a mile
Published: July 18, 2025 6.10am AEST
Author Anjum Naweed Professor of Human Factors, CQUniversity Australia
Disclosure statement
Anjum Naweed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
I once leapt out of a train carriage because two strangers were loudly discussing the ending of the last Harry Potter book. Okay – I didn’t leap, but I did plug my ears and flee to another carriage.
Recently, I found myself in a similar predicament, trapped on a bus, entirely at the mercy of two passengers dissecting the Severance season two finale.
But not everyone shares my spoiler anxiety. I have friends who flip to the last page of a book before they’ve read the first one, or who look up the ending before hitting play. According to them, they simply need to know.
So why do some of us crave surprise and suspense, while others find comfort in instant resolution?
What’s in a spoiler?
Spoilers have become a cultural flashpoint in the age of streaming, social media and shared fandoms.
Researchers define “spoiler” as undesired information about how a narrative’s arc will conclude. I often hear “spoilers!” interjected mid-sentence, a desperate protest to protect narrative ignorance.
Hitchcock’s twist-heavy Psycho elevated spoiler sensitivity. Its release came with an anti-spoilers policy including strict viewing times, lobby warnings recorded by the auteur himself, and even real policemen urging “total enjoyment”. A bold ad campaign implored audiences against “cheating yourselves”.
The twists were fiercely protected.
Even the Star Wars cast didn’t know Darth Vader’s paternity twist until premiere night. Avenger’s Endgame filmed multiple endings and used fake scripting to mislead its stars. And Andrew Garfield flat-out lied about his return to Spider-Man: No Way Home – a performance worthy of an Oscar – all for the sake of fan surprise and enjoyment.
But do spoilers actually ruin the fun, or just shift how we experience it?
The satisfaction of a good ending
In 2014, a Dutch study found that viewers of unspoiled stories experienced greater emotional arousal and enjoyment. Spoilers may complete our “mental models” of the plot, making us less driven to engage, process events, or savour the unfolding story.
But we are also likely to overestimate the negative effect of a spoiler on our enjoyment. In 2016, a series of studies involving short stories, mystery fiction and films found that spoiled participants still reported high levels of enjoyment – because once we’re immersed, emotional connection tends to eclipse what we already know.
But suspense and enjoyment are complex bedfellows.
American media psychology trailblazer Dolf Zillmann said that suspense builds tension and excitement, but we only enjoy that tension once the ending lands well.
The thrill isn’t fun while we’re hanging in uncertainty – it’s the satisfying resolution that retroactively makes it feel good.
That could be why we scramble for an “ending explained” when a film or show drops the ball on closure. We’re trying to resolve uncertainty and settle our emotions.
Spoilers can also take the pressure off. A 2009 study of Lost fans found those who looked up how an episode would end actually enjoyed it more. The researchers found it reduced cognitive pressure, and gave them more room to reflect and soak in the story.
Spoilers put the audience back in the driver’s seat – even if filmmakers would rather keep hold of the wheel. People may seek spoilers out of curiosity or impatience, but sometimes it’s a quiet rebellion: a way to push back against the control creators hold over when and how things unfold.
That’s why spoilers are fertile ground for power dynamics. Ethicists even liken being spoiled to kind of moral trespass: how dare someone else make that decision for me?!
But whether you avoid spoilers or seek them out, the motive is often the same: a need to feel in control.
Shaping your emotions
Spoiler avoiders crave affect: they want emotional transportation.
When suspense is part of the pleasure, control means choosing when and how that knowledge lands. There’s a mental challenge to be had in riding the story as it unfolds, and a joy in seeing it click into place.
That’s why people get protective, and even chatter about long-aired shows can spark outrage. It’s an attempt to police the commentary and preserve the experience for those still waiting to be transported.
Spoiler seekers want control too, just a different kind. They’re not avoiding emotion, they’re just managing it. A spoiler affords control over our negative emotions, but also softens the blow, and inoculates us against anxiety.
Psychologists dub this a “non-cognitive desensitisation strategy” to manage surprise, a kind of “emotional spoiler shield” to protect our attachments to shows and characters, and remind us that TV, film and book narratives are not real when storylines hit close to home.
Knowing what happens turns into a subtle form of self-regulation.
So, what did I do when Severance spoilers floated by? Did I get off the bus? Nope, I stayed put and faced the beast. As I tried to make sense of the unfamiliar plot points (The macrodata means what? Mark stays where?), I found the unexpected chance to dive deeper.
Maybe surprise is not the sum of what makes something entertaining and worth engaging with. Spoiler alert! It’s good to have an end to journey towards, but it’s the journey that matters, in the end.
Cindy Lou breakfasts at Via Dolce
Via Dolce is a pleasant cafe in Civic with indoor and outside seating. The range of pastries and ice-creams is magnificent. However, the breakfast menu is also extensive, offering a splendid variety of dishes. Corn fritters with an addition of poached eggs made a huge breakfast, as did the haloumi and poached eggs. The addition of a generous salad is a nice touch. The elegant mugs are generous and the coffee good. Although the service was rather slow on this morning, the sunny outdoor setting with lovely trees made the wait easy.
Birthday celebration at Courgette
A table next to the window is always a bonus.
Courgette has a new menu and combination of meals available in its two-course menu. The latter is an excellent innovation, as the desserts are charged for separately, and the two courses comprise an entree and a main meal. I began with four oysters – served with lemon and a vinaigrette. The warm bread rolls and ash butter cannot be resisted. I ordered two entrees and resisted the offer to have one served as a main in size – thank goodness as, delightful as both were, they were more than adequate. Our choices were:
John dory & Prawns Ballotine, Avocado and Mandrin olive Oil, Tomato Salsa, Dijon Mustard and Crispy Shallot Basil; Char Siu- Muscovy Duck Breast, Spring Leek & Potato Puree Beetroot Gel, Chilli Peanuts and Cucumber Salad and Sundried Tomato & Bocconcini Crispy Batter Courgette Blossom Baba Ghanoush, Pea Snow, Purple Heirloom and Micro Basil. The one main course was Grass-fed Black Angus Beef FilletMB-4, Spring Pea Puree, Candy Orange Carrot and Bush Pepper Sauce.
Twenty Books that Got Experts through their Twenties
When our arts desk asked 20 experts to list the books that got them through their 20s, I doubt they expected one of them to come back with Heart of Darkness. A mesmerising work of genius, sure, but a companion to surviving early adulthood? When I read the explanation as to why this book made it on to the list, however, I was immediately convinced.I think that’s why this two-part series – the second of which we published this week – has proven so popular. It’s an unexpected reading list for an uncertain period in anyone’s life. Madame Bovary isn’t a character you would want to emulate in your 20s but her story has a lot to teach us, so it made the cut. In fact, there’s arguably something to offer readers of any age in the lineup and certainly inspiration for Christmas pressies for the young people in your life.
Laura hood Senior Politics Editor, Assistant Editor
Your 20s can be an intense decade. In the words of Taylor Swift, those years are “happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time”. Many of us turn to literature to guide us through the highs and the lows of this formative time. We asked 20 of our academic experts to recommend the book that steered them through those ten years.
Part 1-Butterfly Burning by Yvonne Vera (1998); The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (1989); The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (1975); Palestine by Joe Sacco (1993); Lost Illusions by Honoré de Balzac (1843); Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner (1984); Never Far From Nowhere by AndreaLevy (1996); The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (1953); The City by Valerian Pidmohylnyi(1928); The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker (1988).
Part 2-A Manor House Tale by Selma Lagerlöf (1899); To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927);The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe (1958); Candide by Voltaire (1759); The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (1996); The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (2011); The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997); Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899);Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925); Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1856).
American Politics
The Supreme Court handed Republicans a shiny new map, but Texans aren’t dumb; misery, inflation, and desperation don’t vote red; they vote for whoever fixes their lives.
Let me save everyone a little time and a lot of aspirin: the Supreme Court screwed up. Again. And not in the subtle, legal-nerd, “well actually…” way that lets the conservative justices preen while pretending they are the intellectual heirs of Madison. No, this was the full-blown, ham-fisted political hack job we have come to expect from a Court that now treats the Constitution like it is a suggestion box at a Mar-a-Lago brunch buffet.
This time, the Justices blessed Texas’ brand-new, carefully engineered congressional map, a map designed with all the precision and moral clarity of a drunk surgeon, to ensure Republicans squeeze out up to five more House seats. Five. Not because voters demanded it. Not because demographic shifts required it. But because Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, and the entire Trump political machine ordered it. And the Court, like obedient little foot soldiers in judicial robes, saluted.
Texas walked in with an emergency application, whispered “midterms,” “partisan advantage,” and “Biden bad,” and the Supreme Court practically sprinted to their pens. They did not just greenlight gerrymandering. They handed Texas the keys to the bulldozer and said, “Go wild.”
But here is the giant, screaming, flashing-red mistake the Court and the GOP made; the one even their clerks probably recognized as they typed this fiasco:
They ignored the actual suffering of Americans. Including Texans. And voters are not nearly as stupid as Republicans think they are.
Because while Abbott, Paxton, and Trump world are out here popping champagne, Texans are trying to figure out how to afford groceries without auctioning off a kidney. According to the newest Politico poll — and polls rarely deliver clarity this sharp — the top issues in America are not “owning the Libs,” “men in women’s sports,” or “swearing mass deportations will lower rent like immigrants were secretly your landlord.”
No. The issues crushing Americans right now are cost of living, the economy, taxes, healthcare, and democracy itself.
And guess who is underwater on every single one of them. The very administration celebrating this map like it is the Sistine Chapel of partisan manipulation.
Here is where Republicans truly demonstrate their genius-level stupidity: They think a rigged map can override lived reality.
You can gerrymander a district. You can gerrymander a state.
But you cannot gerrymander your way out of a hungry child, an empty bank account, a medical bill that hits like a monthly hate crime, or a voter who has had enough.
No Texan gives a damn about Abbott’s beautifully sculpted partisan crescents when they are paying twenty dollars for coffee and eight hundred for utilities. You can shift minority voters like chess pieces, but you cannot distract them from inflation that strangles. You can carve districts that look like Rorschach tests on acid, but you cannot carve out the creeping dread people feel about the future.
And here is what Republicans missed, spectacularly:
Texans are not going to vote Republican simply because Republicans drew them into a Republican-shaped district. They are going to vote for whoever convinces them they can fix this mess and make their lives better.
Let us talk about the decision itself. The lower court found “substantial evidence,” which is judge-speak for “holy shit, this is obvious,” that Texas purposely reconfigured districts based on race. The Trump administration even sent a letter telling Texas to eliminate “coalition districts,” where nonwhite voters together form a majority. They practically signed the racial motive with a Sharpie.
But magically — magically — the Supreme Court concluded it was not racial gerrymandering, just regular old partisan gerrymandering. The kind the Court fully legalized in 2019 when it declared political map rigging perfectly fine so long as you are not openly racist about it.
Justice Alito, in his usual condescending “let me explain democracy to you peasants” tone, chastised challengers for not producing their own alternative map. Meanwhile, Justice Kagan, one of the last adults in the room, said the Court disrespected the lower court and “the millions of Texans” shoved into racially targeted districts. And she is right. It is not just disrespect. It is contempt. Judicial cowardice dressed up as constitutional deference.
Ken Paxton called the new map a “massive win.” My man, the only thing massive here is the delusion. Texans are not dancing in the streets over this map while they are drowning in inflation, unaffordable healthcare, stagnant wages, and the sense that everything is somehow getting worse.
And here is the punchline Republicans refuse to acknowledge:
Gerrymandering can win you an election. It cannot make voters forget their own misery.
It cannot make groceries affordable. It cannot bring back jobs. It cannot fix a collapsing healthcare system. It cannot stop a democracy from feeling like it is being run by a committee of arsonists.
Sure, the Supreme Court handed Republicans a map. But voters are holding the scorecard.
Texans know exactly what is going on. They see the manipulation. They feel the pain. They know their lives are not getting better under this administration, and no district lines can convince them otherwise.
Republicans got their districts. But whether they get the votes, that is up to the people living in the wreckage.
And Texans, like Americans everywhere, are done voting based on party branding. They are voting based on survival.
The Supreme Court gave Republicans a victory today. But reality is coming.
Social media can cause real harm to our kids, exposing them to risks and pressures they’re just not ready for.
Labor wants every child to get the best start in life, and that means supporting parents to keep them safe online. That’s why we’re taking bold action, banning social media accounts for under-16s from December 10.
It will mean more time for kids to learn, grow, and just be kids – without algorithms getting in the way.
Australia’s social media ban for under-16s starts today. Here is what you should know
Australia’s teen social media ban is here — what happens now?
Australia’s social media ban for people aged under 16 has officially started, marking a world-first push to protect children from phone addiction and online harms.
From now on, a group of social media platforms will face penalties of up to $50 million if they do not take “reasonable steps” to prevent children and teenagers aged under 16 from holding a social media account.
Australia’s age-restricted social media apps:
Facebook
Instagram
Threads
Kick
Reddit
Snapchat
TikTok
Twitch
X (formerly Twitter)
YouTube
In a video address, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese encouraged kids to “make the most of school holidays coming up, rather than spending it scrolling on your phone”.
“Start a new sport, learn a new instrument or read that book that’s been sitting there on your shelf for some time,” he said.
“Importantly, spend quality time with your friends and your family, face to face.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addresses students about the social media ban.
The government’s list of age-restricted apps will almost certainly grow in the coming weeks.
Australia’s online safety watchdog is keeping an eye out for other platforms that fit the criteria, and tech companies are required to constantly monitor if they are likely to be captured by the restrictions at any time.
Already, social media apps Lemon8 and Yope have been put on notice after experiencing a surge in popularity as young people have looked for alternative platforms.
And while the ban technically starts today, the government has admitted it won’t be perfect.
Bipartisan support for the ban is also appearing shaky.
Australian children under 16 are now banned from 10 popular social media platforms. The world-first ban aims to protect young people from the harms of social media use. Platforms are required to take reasonable steps to stop kids from having accounts on their platforms.
How will it work?
Accounts of people suspected of being under 16 will be closed unless they can pass an age verification check. Users who want to stay on the age-restricted platforms can be asked to undergo facial recognition scans or provide government-issued identification such as a driver’s licence. There have been concerns the technology designed to restrict access can be fooled.
What’s banned?
Not all platforms are completely banned
Children under 16 should be removed from 10 platforms — but other platforms will allow kids under 16 with some restrictions and some will continue as normal. The government could add more apps in the future. Swipe to find out what’s covered by the ban.
Banned
TikTok
It’s a place to create, share and discover short videos and is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance. While TikTok has its own minimum age of 13, the regulator has found it has been one of the most popular platforms for users aged between eight and 12.
Banned
Instagram
Prior to December, Instagram had more than a million monthly active users aged 13–17, according to the eSafety Commission. Users can share images and videos and send direct messages. The platform has teen accounts with some limits already but is still banned completely for under-16s. Threads is a microblogging platform similar to X. Users need an Instagram account to access Threads so it is also banned.
Banned
Snapchat
This was among the most popular apps for young people, with more than a million of its 8.3 million Australian users aged 17 or under before the ban. Snapchat is a messaging app that allows users to send images, videos and texts that are only available for a short period once they’re opened. Users can also choose to share their location with friends on Snap Map.
Banned
YouTube
YouTube logo
It had more than 643,000 users aged 17 and under prior to December. The regulator found it was the top platform for users aged between eight and 12. YouTube is only blocking kids from using its platform with an account. So under-16s can still watch videos if they’re not logged in. As for YouTube Kids…
Allowed
YouTube Kids
YouTube Kids logo
This is a filtered version of YouTube’s main platform that allows parents to create accounts for children under 12. Google, which owns YouTube, says YouTube Kids will not be affected by the new rules.
Banned
Facebook
It’s the platform even your mum is on to share photos and videos and join groups. Facebook had an estimated 455,000 Australian users aged between 13 and 17 before December 4. While its main platform is banned, Facebook Messenger and Messenger Kids apps remain available to under-16s.
Banned
X (Formerly Twitter)
X logo
This is not among the most popular apps for young people. Users post short-form commentary and it was once a place for online discussion but the eSafety Commission has concerns about the prevalence of “online hate” on the platform.
Banned
Twitch
Twitch logo
Streaming platform Twitch was added to the list of banned apps after the eSafety Commission found it had the sole or significant purpose of online social interaction. Twitch is mainly used by gaming and eSport players to broadcast their gameplay with audio commentary, but it’s also used to share and broadcast music, live sports and food programs.
Banned
Reddit
Reddit is the seventh-most-visited site in the world. The platform offers users a message board service organised into topics also known as sub-Reddits.
Banned
Kick
Kick is an Australian competitor to video live streaming platform Twitch, where users can watch live video steams covering games, music and gambling.
Allowed
GitHub
This platform allows multiple software developers to work on projects simultaneously. It has an open-source version control system that tracks every change to a project’s files.
Allowed
LEGO Play
This platform was designed for kids to design and build in 3D and create stop-motion animation. Users can also design personal avatars and play games.
Allowed
Roblox
This online universe housing millions of user-generated games has about 50 million children globally on it each day. Aussie kids who use the platform spend over two hours a day on it on average, according to a 2024 study.
Allowed
Discord
Users can join or create servers to communicate with others via text, voice and video. It was originally designed for gamers but is used more widely now.
Allowed
Steam & Steam Chat
Steam is a digital game distribution platform for PC games while Steam Chat is the integrated messaging service within the platform that allows users to communicate with friends.
Allowed
Google Classroom
This is the one platform kids were probably hoping to have banned. This platform is used in many Australian schools to distribute lessons and assignments to students and allows students to complete and submit their schoolwork.
Allowed
Lemon8 & Yope
…for now. The eSafety Commission has asked both platforms to self-assess, which means they are likely to be captured under the ban. Both apps have become increasingly popular as the ban has drawn closer. Lemon8 is owned by ByteDance — the same company that owns TikTok. It has been described as a lifestyle-focused app with content on fashion, beauty, food and travel. Yope is a photo-sharing app.
Some underage users have previously vowed to find a way around the ban, and the law only says platforms must take “reasonable steps” to prevent them from having accounts.
How a social media app determines a user’s age will vary from platform to platform.
In many cases, a platform can reasonably infer someone’s age by looking at how long an account has existed and by examining their posts and personal networks.
One way is to request a government-issued ID, such as a drivers licence, though platforms are prohibited from compelling users to provide ID and must offer an alternative.
Underage users might be able to reactivate their accounts once they turn 16, but that is not guaranteed, and it all depends on the platform.
Social media apps must determine if a user is too young to have an account. (ABC Riverland: Shannon Pearce)
Every platform is using a different approach, and it is likely some teenagers will slip through the cracks.
Besides, people under 16 will still be able to see publicly available social media content that does not require a login.
In other words, it will not be flawless.
But the Australian government insists it is worth trying anyway if it means protecting children from endless “doomscrolling” and other harms such as cyberbullying and grooming. Teens who support the social media ban
Patrick, 15, does not use social media and hopes he never does. Nick, 15, had a flip phone for the first few years of high school. Here is why they support the social media ban.
Though the move is popular with many parents, some kids in regional towns say the ban will worsen isolation — particularly for LGBTQIA+ teens, who have found acceptance and support among online communities.
Two teenagers have taken their fight against the ban all the way to the High Court.
The group initially announced in November that it was trying to stall the laws. However, the court will hear a special case next year instead.
Other young people have welcomed the ban, saying they resent the way tech companies keep them hooked by using their data to develop addictive algorithms.
Australia’s social media ban marks the first time a nation has attempted to take on the big tech giants — and the world is watching closely to see how it unfolds.
The European Union is now considering similar bans, as well as proposals for a late-night “curfew”, an age-verification app, and limits on addictive features such as infinite scrolling and excessive push notifications.
Malaysia is set to join the list of countries restricting access to social media, with its own ban for under-16s coming into effect on January 1.
Inside Story
The Dismissal from below
Fifty years later, what impact has the Dismissal had on Australian democracy?
Gathering storm: senator John Wheeldon, prime minister Gough Whitlam and Clyde Holding MP watch as Bob Hawke addresses a 20 October protest in Melbourne’s City Square during the supply crisis. Sydney Morning Herald
In November 1975 the Dismissal seemed the biggest of big deals in Australian political history. For years after, you could still, without great difficulty, find the “rage” Gough Whitlam had asked his supporters to maintain during the 1975 election campaign.
The passionate ones survive today, but in dwindling numbers. Few who rallied for and against Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser in November 1975 could have foreseen that before the end of the century those two men — political giants and fierce enemies in the 1970s — would collaborate in support of a republic, among various causes, and even appear together at public events, as they did at Kevin Rudd’s apology to the stolen generations in 2008. But the Dismissal itself faded into a distant, blurry history — passing, as even dramatic events must, from current affairs to living history to collective memory.
The egyptologist Jan Assmann’s distinction between two types of “collective memory” — “communicative” and “cultural” — might be helpful in understanding how to think about where the Dismissal now sits in Australian life. Communicative memory is the product of everyday interactions that lead to “numerous collective self-images and memories” and is distinguished by “its limited temporal horizon.” This variety of memory might last three or four generations: say, eighty to one hundred years. “Cultural memory,” by way of contrast, is characterised by its “distance from the everyday,” as well as its role in constituting a social group’s identity. It might be seen as shading into “legend” or even “myth.”
The fiftieth anniversary of the Dismissal suggests that the event, as well as the brief, turbulent history of the Whitlam government itself, still lives within communicative memory. People will tell you where they were when it happened. They will tell you how they felt. They might tell you what the Whitlam government meant to them, and what its Dismissal signified and signifies. Such memories are held, and communicated, in and beyond families and other small groups, even allowing for Australians’ reputed reluctance to tie their identity to political history or civic life.
But I would also like to suggest that the Dismissal is moving towards what Assmann calls cultural memory, with its greater abstractions. It will continue to play a role in telling us something about who we are: but as an event capable of shaping everyday action and understanding, as a truly lived history, it is fast fading.
One test of this is how we talk about our democracy. There is now an entrenched discourse that celebrates the robustness of Australian democracy: it is there in the ABC program, Civic Duty, hosted by Annabel Crabb. It is there, too, in the use of the term “democracy sausage,” which began not much more than a decade ago and seeks to connect the Australian way of life, represented by the pleasures of the barbecue, with to the act of voting, represented as the epitome of democratic fairness.
This discourse equates democracy with voting. It ignores trade union and social movement activism. It hides the decidedly undemocratic way political parties so often operate, including the large donations they receive from vested interests that won’t be revealed until well after election day, if at all. It tells us nothing about the actual exercise of political power, the quiet lobbying and buying of access, the marginalisation and exclusion of voices politicians don’t wish to hear, the oppressions experienced by those without wealth, status, connections and power. It has nothing to say about social and economic inequality.
It also has nothing to say about the Dismissal. That would surprise the generations of 1975, those enjoined to “maintain your rage and enthusiasm” — and perhaps even those who loathed the Whitlam government and were glad to see the back of it. The nation left the Dismissal behind, tucked away in the back of the wardrobe along with safari suits, flared trousers, wide collars and other unfashionable legacies of the 1970s — to be retrieved, perhaps, for the occasional 1970s party.
Each anniversary of the Dismissal was still dutifully noticed in the media, but the idea that the events of November 1975 might carry deeper meaning for one’s judgements about the quality of Australian democracy seemed to be less in evidence as the years passed. New books came out, along with the occasional media documentary. New discoveries about the inner workings of the Dismissal were made possible by historian and Whitlam biographer Jenny Hocking’s long legal fight for the release of the Palace Letters, the correspondence between governor-general Sir John Kerr and the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris. But the task of demonstrating the contemporary relevance of the Dismissal had become tough.
This disconnect could not easily have been imagined in November and December 1975. The generations of 1975 fought for a version of Australian democracy they believed to be under threat. They believed that vested interests had mobilised, the media had played dirty, a chief justice had betrayed his claim to neutrality, opposition parties had thrown aside propriety, and a representative of the Queen, a “colonial relic” who should confine himself to opening the occasional fete, had sacked a democratically elected government using powers most considered had fallen into disuse.
Part of the process of submerging the Dismissal was to normalise it. The Coalition parties worked that way in 1975: they framed their actions, and Kerr’s, as a working out of the democratic system, the constitution displaying its capacity to resolve a crisis. As we saw in some fiftieth-anniversary public statements by Liberal politicians, including shadow education minister Julian Leeser, and right-wing media commentators, this remains integral to their defence of the Dismissal: that it was legal, proper and, even if hardly a common event, nonetheless a normal and acceptable process.
The work I’ve been doing with James Watson, thanks to support from the Whitlam Institute, tells another story, although not via the usual means of closer study of the elite actors — Whitlam, Kerr, Fraser and chief justice Garfield Barwick — or their principal actions. Rather, we turned to social and political movements, and the engagements of citizens and activists.
There is one sense in which their responses to the Dismissal were indeed “normal”: we are seeking to recover the Dismissal less as a unique constitutional event than as an emblematic and supremely important example of the wider popular politics of that time. It was an era of social protest, political mobilisation and industrial militancy.
We need to recover the history of the Dismissal as part of a more expansive sense of the possibilities of democratic citizenship in the 1970s, and on a less happy note, to see in the course of the protest movement of 1975–77 a harbinger of the disarming of much of this radical hope in the later 1970s, 1980s and beyond.
A gathering crisis
When the Coalition deferred supply on 16 October, it broke a convention of parliamentary politics that many Australians felt was central to the health of their democracy. Few Australians would have believed that a government with a democratically elected majority in the lower house should be blocked by the Senate from governing, despite there being some recent precedents, at least at state level.
The Cain Labor government in Victoria had lost office in 1947 when supply was blocked in the upper house but then forced its way back into government in 1952 by denying supply to the Country Party. Similarly, the Tasmanian Legislative Council had forced an election in 1948 by refusing supply to Robert Cosgrove’s Labor government. And in 1970 Whitlam himself had defended voting against a budget in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in an effort to “destroy the government” (a quote that was often used against him by Kerr and his supporters after 1975). But it is one thing to talk in such terms in the heat of parliamentary debate and in the absence of a Senate majority, and another to actually do it.
In response to Fraser’s denial of supply, Australia’s unions organised large-scale protests. The massive, powerful and militant Amalgamated Metal Workers’ Union held “spontaneous strikes.” Sydney members of the Waterside Workers’ Federation announced a twenty-four-hour stoppage for Friday; 1000 of them marched from the union rooms to the rally addressed by Whitlam and the ACTU’s Bob Hawke, the Labor Party president, in Hyde Park.
Outside Parliament House in Canberra on the Thursday, while the budget bills were being considered by the Senate, Hawke told a crowd of 2500 that if the opposition refused to grant supply, “the Australian trade union movement may very well think about withholding supplies from them.” Was that a threat of a general strike? Probably not, given the meeting had considered and then rejected a motion for such action. Still, the National Country Party leader Doug Anthony accused Hawke of “incitement to lawlessness.”
The role of the perceived potential for social disorder in the events leading up to the Dismissal has been underestimated by historians. At the beginning of October, with the plan to block supply on the opposition’s informal agenda but not yet a reality, Liberal Movement senator Steele Hall publicly warned Fraser he would fail to build a “popular base” for his leadership if the community “contained the bitter and growing discontent of Labor supporters who believed the ballot box had lost its democratic function.” Kerr himself, writing shortly after the first rallies and strikes following the blocking of supply in mid-October, told the Queen’s private secretary: “As the money runs out many problems will arise and the reaction of the trade unions has to be considered. There are threats of protest strikes and industrial ‘war’.”
Ian Macphee, a leading Victorian Liberal moderate, wrote a couple of weeks later along similar lines: if the Coalition won an election “stemming from the present crisis we will have the outright hostility of nearly 50 per cent of the electorate.” He worried especially over the unions, which “would feel justified in destroying our government as they believe the Senate destroyed their government.” The confrontation involved, he said, was “frightening to contemplate.” The Labor senator John Wheeldon told the Senate during the budget debate on 16 October:
This government has been trying to maintain the economy of this country on an even keel, by advocating wage indexation and by restraint in public expenditure. If we are removed, will opposition members be able to convince the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union or the Miners Federation to restrain their wage demands? Why should the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union or the Miners Federation restrain their wage demands if they know that they are living in a society in which anything goes.
Fear of violence and disorder was real, even while the rallies and protests held in the immediate wake of the blocking of supply were mainly orderly and peaceful. But at a Liberal rally at Brisbane’s Festival Hall on 31 October, Liberal MP John Hughes was punched in the stomach and on the nose after he tried to snatch a placard from Labor supporters. A picture of his bloodied face appeared on the front page of the Courier Mail the next day. The ugly confrontation, although isolated and minor, exposed the danger of peaceful protest degenerating into physical violence amid an increasingly passionate politics.
The Dismissal and its aftermath
Many Australians would later remember where they were when they first heard about the Dismissal, usually reporting a sense of shock or disbelief. Some simply couldn’t believe what others told them or had heard over the radio. When the news did sink in, some were relieved and others angered, but anyone with even a basic appreciation of the country’s political culture understood they were witnessing something unusual and momentous. A young journalist, Niki Savva, described the scenes in Canberra that followed Fraser’s parliamentary announcement as “memorable, awesome and frightening.”
Demonstrators began assembling outside Parliament House — a few thousand by late afternoon — with smaller numbers going to Government House at Yarralumla where they lowered the flag to half-mast. The Canberra protests were peaceful overall, although demonstrators yelled “Sieg Heil” at Coalition politicians and invited those watching from the upper balcony of Parliament House to jump. When Fraser walked down the building’s famous steps to visit Government House for the second time that day, some protesters tried to punch him. Angry crowds also surged around his car on his return.
Good humour infused the remarkable appearance of comedian Garry McDonald, in character as Norman Gunston, who had flown from Sydney to join in the excitement. His appearance outside Parliament House delighted the crowd, to whom he made a well-received and rousing speech asking if the Dismissal was an “affront to the constitution of this country” or “just a stroke of good luck for Mr Frazier” (possibly confusing the new prime minister with the famous boxer). That people — even a leading player such as Bill Hayden, recently appointed treasurer — could find humour in these moments of high tension probably says more about the basic serenity of the country’s politics than any detailed account of the more aggressive forms of protest.
While Australia’s stock exchanges “went berserk” at the news of the Dismissal and “launched into the biggest buying spree” since the mining bubble of 1970, the events of 11 November raised the spectre of serious civil violence for the first time since the Depression. Protests occurred in the country’s capital cities over the following days, perhaps the largest and most destructive occurring in Melbourne on the 11th.
There, a pro-Whitlam protest at Liberal Party headquarters “erupted into one of the most violent demonstrations ever seen in the city” — according to the Australian — as protesters clambered over police cars and “kicks and punches were freely given.” Police were “led from the taunting crowd bleeding from head wounds and with their shirts torn.” A police wagon drove through the melee, knocking down protesters and police, while a horse used repeatedly to charge through the protesters was “battered with sticks and stones.” Glaziers refused to fix the broken windows of the party offices. “Each time they are asked to repair them, they just can’t quite seem to bring themselves to do it,” a helpful Furnishing Trades Society secretary explained.
In Sydney, about 2000 marched that day, mainly students, with scuffles but no arrests. Smaller protests were held in Adelaide and Brisbane.
Unions and the general strike
At a time when about 55 per cent of workers belonged to trade unions, by far the greatest potential for social disorder came from the possibility of mass industrial action. Sam Oldham has shown in Without Bosses: Radical Australian Trade Unionism in the 1970s that the decade was a period of significant labour movement militancy, not all of it securely under the control of union officials. Ideas of industrial democracy gained a significant foothold in many industries and contributed to shopfloor militancy. As Phil Griffiths has suggested, general accounts of the Dismissal mainly ignore the strikes that did occur and greatly underestimate the potential for mass action.
The Commonwealth Labor Advisory Committee, chaired by Bob Hawke and including the party’s federal parliamentary leaders and officers, ACTU leaders and representatives of the public service unions, met at John Curtin House in Canberra for several hours on 11 November. It passed a resolution expressing a “total dedication and determination to have the Whitlam Labor government re-elected.” Critically, there would be no support for a general strike.
Left-wing unions were most put out by what they saw as the unseemly haste of the rejection of mass strikes, the blame for which they laid squarely at the feet of Bob Hawke. The Melbourne branch of the Waterside Workers Federation, disagreeing with Hawke’s “reaction to the fascist onslaught on Australian democratic government,” urged that “industrial strength must be organised to move Fraser now.” The Federal Council of the Builders Labourers’ Federation donated a massive $20,000 to Labor’s election fund but also found “words hard to describe your [Hawke’s] gutless and cowardly statements regarding the current drive to fascism by Fraser. You have only strengthened current view that you are in the hands of the multinationals.”
The South Australian branch of the Australian Building and Construction Workers’ Federation wanted “an immediate general strike to demonstrate our disgust and complete opposition to the fascist moves of Fraser, the Governor-General and the multinationals.” It also called for “abolition of the colonial positions of Governor-General and State Governors, the expropriation without compensation of the multinationals and resolve to establish Australia as a truly Independent Republic, ruled by the working class, free of Imperialist domination.”
The Australian Railways Union rejected the “passive role” of the ACTU and called for “immediate and positive leadership.” Several unions wanted a twenty-four-hour stoppage, others forty-eight hours, but many others expressed their support for Hawke’s position, which had received subsequent endorsement by the ACTU executive.
Many unionists walked off the job on the afternoon of 11 November to attend hastily organised rallies, and hundreds of thousands went on strike in the days that followed. Seamen walked out, thereby tying up ships in the country’s ports. E.V. Elliott, veteran federal secretary of the Seamen’s Union and a communist, detected echoes of Hitler and Mussolini in Kerr’s actions and reported that many of his 5000 members had walked off the job on the 11 November, with some crews collecting as much as $1000 for the struggle ahead. Many of those at sea had radioed in their objections to Kerr’s actions.
On the 12th, hundreds of members of the union as well as some kindred maritime unions crowded into Sydney’s Trades Hall, where they pledged support for the re-election of Labor, promised at least a day’s pay and continuing political activity, and then marched through Sydney’s streets to Chifley Square. They returned to their ships on the 13th. Meanwhile, waterside workers began a twenty-four-hour strike at midnight as the 11th turned into the 12th.
Other workers — in the metal trades and railway workshops of Sydney and Newcastle, for example, and about 2000 at the Newcastle State Dockyard — spontaneously walked off the job soon after the news of the dismissal reached them. But the leaders of several large unions stood behind the ACTU’s support for the ballot box over strike action. The leaders of the Australian Workers’ Union, the Federated Ironworkers’ Union, and the Australian Postal and Telecommunications Union — all right-leaning — either opposed striking or said that any action needed to await further consultation between the political and industrial wings of the labour movement.
Among other white-collar unions, the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations federal president, Ken Turbet, called on federal public servants to refrain from strike action. His position that “government are our employers, not political adversaries or friends, who should be served loyally and impartially” received the fullest commendation of one of its large constituent unions, the Administrative and Clerical Officers’ Association, which insisted on the political neutrality of public servants despite some pressure from the rank and file. If public servants had walked out, they could well have disrupted arrangements for the transition of the Coalition to caretaker government from 11 November and the 13 December election. Another group of public employees, ABC staff, held a four-hour stoppage on 14 November to protest against the management’s handling of reports on the crisis.
An emphasis on fundraising emerged quickly. Unions announced fundraising drives among their members and approved large donations to support Labor’s campaign, or in the case of the Teachers’ Federation to highlight the differences between the parties on education.
It is important not to see these actions through our knowledge of their ultimate fruitlessness, given the magnitude of Labor’s defeat on 13 December, because that was obviously not how matters appeared to many observers at the time. With the Whitlam government’s position improving in the opinion surveys, pollster Gary Morgan predicted a close result.
It was the maritime unions — seamen and waterside workers — who provided the strongest counterpoint to the emphasis on overturning the Dismissal at the ballot-box. They remained on strike for several days, while a walkout of Queensland meat workers closed many abattoirs. The massive Amalgamated Metal Workers’ Union required its members in the metropolitan areas to walk off the job for at least four hours on Friday 14 November, a day of nationwide protest. In Melbourne, it and other left-wing unions called out about 400,000 workers that day, contributing to the strong attendance at Defend Democracy rallies.
Isolated calls for a national strike continued, but even the left-wing unions appear to have realised that the time for any such action had passed, if indeed it had ever existed. On 25 November Pat Clancy, federal secretary of the Building Workers Industrial Union and a member of the Soviet-line Socialist Party of Australia, placed before the ACTU executive a call for a national strike during the election campaign as a last-resort response to “provocation” from the political right. But Hawke had already won the debate, and that victory would have consequences for Australian politics well beyond the election of 13 December 1975.
Grateful campaigners
The 1975 election campaign really began when a bomb blew out the right eye of Keith Macfarlane, a clerk in Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Brisbane mailroom. On 19 November, just as the day was starting, Macfarlane called over a colleague, Garry Kross, to look at a white envelope addressed to the premier and marked “press release kit.” Inside were white wires. When Kross put the envelope down “a flash and a whoosh” blew a hole in the desk and cut his face and hand. Another envelope had been sent to Fraser the same day, but in that case an x-ray machine caught the bomb before anyone could be hurt. Two days later, a third was sent to Kerr’s office.
These acts of terrorism attracted understandable attention, but the larger story was of peaceful campaigning, drawing on the capacities for social movement mobilisation already well demonstrated in recent years and the credibility the government had built up in such quarters. On the very day of the Dismissal, 8500 women insurance workers had gained equal pay as the result of an Arbitration Commission decision creating a common salary scale in their industry. The Whitlam government had supported equal pay from the moment it came to office in December 1972 and its record of achievement for women had, in the end, exceeded the initial expectations of many feminists.
That was in no small part due to Elizabeth Reid, women’s adviser to the government — a world first at the time of her appointment in 1973. Reid had resigned on 2 October 1975, frustrated at relentlessly negative and sexist media coverage that had eroded support for her among the men advising Whitlam.
The Women’s Liberation Movement was an ambivalent campaigner in 1975, choosing to support Labor as the better alternative to a Fraser-led Coalition government. CAMP, the major pro-gay rights organisation in New South Wales, displayed a similar attitude, its executive having decided during the supply crisis in late October “to strongly urge all members” to support the Labor government at rallies and elsewhere, because compared with Coalition governments, it “has been shown to be the only instrument for reform in Australia.”
Women’s groups also rallied, with “Women for Whitlam” groups emerging around the country. In Melbourne, seventy women representing twenty-one women’s organisations resolved to support Labor and Whitlam, acknowledging that “over the last three years, and especially in International Women’s Year, women’s issues had received recognition for the first time in Australia’s history.” In the same city, Margaret Whitlam addressed a Women for Democracy rally, declaring that “[f]or the first time an Australian Government has dedicated itself to the principle that every woman has the right and should have the opportunity to choose the way of life best suited to her.”
In Adelaide, Women’s Liberation, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom formed a Women’s Action Group with Labor women and held a lunchtime rally in Rundle Mall; it also decided to door-knock “in swinging electorates.”
In Sydney, 1500 members of a People’s Action Coalition met at a Hyde Park rally where speakers represented Women’s Liberation, CAMP, the Australian Union of Students and the Italian community. Members of these organisations then marched with resident action and environmental groups to a rally in the Domain being addressed by Gough Whitlam. Stop Fraser committees were formed among Greeks, Italians and other migrant groups; at the big Sydney Domain rally addressed by Whitlam, “We want Gough” was said to have been heard in almost as many languages as there were migrant groups in Australia. Students and academics also mobilised.
There was gratitude, too, for what the government had done for First Nations peoples. Whitlam had only recently, in August, handed back land to the Gurindji people of the Northern Territory. Yolŋu artist and activist Wandjuk Marika now announced that his people, who lived on the Gove Peninsula, would give the Labor campaign $12,000 raised from the sale of their paintings “because Labor is for the people. If Labor gets in we will get land rights.”
When it came, the election result — a massive Coalition majority in the House and Senate — was a crushing blow for Labor supporters. Many felt betrayed, powerless and depressed. Guido Barrachi, whose career in radical politics stretched back to the first world war and its aftermath as a founding member of the Communist Party, had come out of retirement as an activist to hand out election material for Labor, wandering the hot streets of Penrith with a sign around his neck. Lugging his heavy sack of paper on a hot summer’s day proved too much. He collapsed and died that night, just as the political analysts were calling a victory for Fraser and the Coalition.
Memory does its work
As C.V. Wedgwood warned, history is “lived forwards, but is written in retrospect. We know the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly recapture what it was to know the beginning only.” We know that Australian democracy was not destroyed by the Dismissal. There was no outbreak of mass violence. There was no revolution. There was no republic. We know that the Coalition won the 13 December 1975 election in a landslide. But the major actors could not be certain of that result on 11 November. The Dismissal and 1975 election weighed heavily on Labor supporters and the left, who believed their democracy was coming undone before their eyes.
Yet it is possible to discern in the events that followed something of the political order that would take shape in the 1980s. “With passing of time I maintained the rage but its heat diminished,” Labor senator John Button explained. “I could forgive but not forget the indulgences of the Whitlam government. I was convinced that the next Labor government could not be as undisciplined as the last. It would need strategies and patience.” Many of the Labor politicians who, like Button, would do so much to reshape the country from 1983 seem to have drawn similar conclusions from the experience.
Most significantly, there was Bob Hawke. One can detect in his campaigning in November and December 1975 the first stage of his bid for the Lodge. While, as we have seen, some left-wing unions were unhappy with Hawke’s dampening of mass industrial action, there was nonetheless wider support for his position among ordinary members of the public. Hannah Sweeney, a Queenslander, wrote at 11pm on 13 December to congratulate Hawke for the way he had fought the election:
I did not vote for your party, but I admired the spirit of moderation and of true democracy which you showed in many of your public speeches, and which were dangerously lacking in the statements of some other public figures of both parties. When our country has been so deeply divided, we need responsible leaders to heal our divisions. You have helped do this.
Another Liberal voter, Robert Ellis from Melbourne, was deeply impressed by Hawke’s conduct during the election night coverage, admiring the courage with which he endured defeat and his capacity to stay cool despite “unnecessary needling” from Billy Snedden. Ellis continued:
Both the extreme Left and the extreme Right of Australian politics have the potential to threaten the Australian people and are to be feared. I believe that you can do more, by reason and persuasion, to prevent the excesses of both extremes, than can almost anyone in Australia… On Saturday, you proved, at least to me, that you are one of the people on whom the future of this country depends.
We don’t know if Hannah Sweeney or Robert Ellis voted Labor in 1983. We do know that these citizens saw in Hawke’s politics the appeal of a consensus that would form the centrepiece of his appeal to voters a little over seven years later.
For many years, certainly through the Hawke and Keating era, the manner of Whitlam’s demise and the character of his response would dominate collective memory of his government. At some point, though, probably from the mid-1990s, the Dismissal became more marginal to Whitlam’s reputation. He was no longer mainly the martyr of 1975. As he became older, he became ever more venerable, associated more with a great transformation in Australian life he had helped bring about than with the chaos of his government’s demise. The government’s legislative record, achieved in just three years, was remarkable and enviable by later standards.
Fraser’s reputation, too, improved over time as he moved leftward and reconciled with Whitlam. People associated him with his various public stands — now often against the Liberal Party under his former treasurer John Howard — and less with the Dismissal. Kerr, who died much earlier than the others in 1991, was left to carry the worst of the Dismissal’s reputation, as he does today. By displacing responsibility from Fraser to Kerr, it became easier to see the Dismissal as the handiwork of a man of poor character and judgement — possibly a drunkard — rather than the product of a flawed democracy.
Australians have made and remade the events of October to December 1975 in their national imaginary, exercising the kind of agency in evidence during the crisis itself. Today, they are more likely to note that Whitlam gave them the chance of a university education than to recall much about the events of 11 November or the weeks surrounding the dismissal. Many of them were there saying as much outside the Sydney Town Hall in 2014 at the service to celebrate Whitlam’s life and mark his death.
The people were not mere extras in a play acted out by Whitlam, Fraser, Kerr, Barwick and Hawke. Rather, they were at the centre of the drama, just as the nature and quality of their democracy was at the heart of what was in contention. But although the Dismissal remains in the living memory of many older Australians and is still conventionally regarded as the most significant single event in the country’s political history, it paradoxically seems to have very little influence on how most of us regard our democracy today. Is that just Australia’s famous complacency? Are we so easy-going, so practical and matter-of-fact as a people, that we simply decided to put it behind us and move on, letting bygones be bygones?
Yet democracy is now probably more central to Australia’s national self-image than it was in 1975. In a world where democracy is in decay, Australians have been increasingly inclined to celebrate the robustness of the Australian version, with regular and affectionate nodding to the democracy sausage as shorthand for a pride in their success in holding free and fair elections and producing governments with popular consent and legitimacy. In 1975, however, Australian democracy seemed a more fragile thing.
The basic institutional design of our system remains unchanged from those turbulent times. Much of the union protest that occurred in 1975 would today be impossible unless the leaders concerned were prepared to risk massive fines. In some ways, and certainly in that respect, our democracy is less healthy than it was as spring turned to summer in 1975. We would perhaps do well to regard it with a more critical eye, and with a more careful vigilance, than has become fashionable in the land of the democracy sausage.
Frank Bongiorno is Professor of History at the Australian National University and Distinguished Fellow of the Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University. This is the text of a keynote lecture delivered at The Spirit of 1975: Transformations in Australian Labour History, the nineteenth conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History in Melbourne on 28 November 2025. It is part of a larger project undertaken with James Watson of the Australian National University with the support of the Whitlam Institute.
Ellie Levenson Room 706 Zando | SJP Lit, January 2026.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
This is Kate’s story – her childhood and young adulthood, and the impact of marriage and motherhood are seen through Kate’s recall as she waits in room 706 in a London hotel. She is not alone. James, her older married lover has emerged from the bathroom when Kate sees the news on the television: their hotel is under terrorist attack. The terrorists’ flag hangs outside leaving the media and security forces under no illusion that they are a group known to show no mercy to their hostages. That a past bombing of a building under siege was ineffectual does not reduce the menace Kate and James experience in room 706; nor is Vic, Kate’s husband to whom she texts early in her plight, unaware of the danger. He remains vigilant in helping her overcome her fears through the hours of incarceration. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Beth Reid Women in the Scottish Wars of Independence 1296–1357 Pen & Sword |Pen & Sword History, June 2025.
Thank you, Net Galley and Pen & Sword, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
Beth Reid’s introduction is a clear exposition of her aims, at the same time as presenting the nucleus of the arguments she makes, and suggestions for further research and writing on the topic. The book is divided into three parts – Women in Politics, Women in Captivity, and Women in Warfare. Immediately Reid demonstrates her capacity to grasp the essential elements of each and apply them to the women who grace these pages. The women she is writing about will be treated in their capacity as actors in the field rather than in their domestic roles. She outlines the two phases of the Scottish Wars of Independence, ensuring that even in this brief account she refers to the nuanced nature of the wars, rather than the populist view of antagonism between England and Scotland. Although the resources featuring women are limited, her narrative history with its focus on women provides yet another example of the importance of writing women into history. The previews are useful and what follows fulfils their promise.Books: Reviews
Olapeju Simoyan Girls Become Doctors and Much More Inspiring Stories of Women in Medicine Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op, September 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
This book presents a refreshing range of stories, told by the author. The object of illustrating the wide range of activities that women whose first profession is medicine pursue, support and mentor is something that is new. Rather than contribute only to the literature that shows women’s fortitude in entering ‘men’s’ professions and excelling there, Olapeju Simoyan has brought a further perspective to such women’s lives and their aspirations. For a patient, the realisation that the professional woman she may face during times of great stress, or even for a perfunctory visit to the surgery, has a range of interests, enhances the professional face. The stories told here raise the possibility that other women doctors replicate them and their diverse interests. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
American Politics
Bob McMullan
Charting trump’s decline
There has been a significant and measurable decline in Americans’ assessment of President Trump.
I am not referring to his mental decline. Many have commented on his rambling speeches and press conferences and his apparent pattern of falling asleep during meetings. But I am not equipped to assess the reality of allegations of mental decline.
I am not even referring to apparent signs of physical decline. The mystery MRI has not been explained. Swollen ankles, bruised hands and other signs may be significant, but there is not sufficient evidence to draw a conclusion from this distance.
Rather, I am referring to the incontrovertible evidence of decline in the level of voter support for Donald Trump so early in his second term.
The early election results certainly point to a serious problem for Republicans. In the recent round of elections, it was not just the resounding victories for Democrat candidates in the big contests for Governor of Virginia and New Jersey and the Mayor of New York city but also a staggering array of victories in election contests for school boards and a broad range of other less important positions across the country.
However, the more compelling and measurable evidence about future prospects can be found in the analysis of voter approval ratings overall and in key policy areas.
The absolute polling numbers are bad for Trump.
The trend should be even more alarming to his team.
Since July Trump’s overall approval rating as measured by the Real Clear Politics Poll of Polls has been in negative territory. It currently stands at -13.1%.
The alarming trend for him is a story of continuing decline in approval from -3.3% at 7 July to -6 at 16 August, -6.1% on 12 September and -13.1% at 23rd November.
The decline can also be seen in some of the most politically significant policy areas. It is not uniform, as you would not expect it to be, but there are noticeable negative trends in some of the most significant and politically sensitive policy areas.
The most outstanding numbers can be found in the assessments of Trump’s performance in handling inflation. This is significant because inflation is widely regarded as among the most potent election deciding issues in most western countries. including in Trump’s 2024 victory.
In July voters had a negative perception of Trump’s handling of inflation by more than 19%. This was a really bad assessment, but it has continued to get worse. By November the measure was negative more than 25%!
After regularly attempting to turn the numbers around by asserting that prices were actually falling the recent removal of tariffs on food as a response to concerns about prices is a very significant backdown and an indication of deep concern in the administration about consumer prices.
The underlying significance of the tariff cuts, as they convey the clear reality that Trump’s assertion that tariffs will not increase prices because they will be paid by foreign suppliers is utterly bogus, may be missed by average voters, but it is a very significant backdown for the President.
A similar pattern of decline in approval from bad to even worse can be seen in the numbers for economic policy, foreign policy in general, and his handling of Russia/Ukraine in particular. (It is important to note that these numbers pre-date the recent “peace initiative”).
It is important to note that the very controversial issue of immigration, which was central to Trump’s 2024 election campaign and represents much of the public face of the administration also reflects declining approval. However, the decline is smaller, from -2% to -3.7%, and the absolute number is much less negative than most other areas.
There are two policy areas which do not fit with this overall assessment.
One, Trump’s handling of crime reflects the decline in approval seen elsewhere, but his November net approval rating was 0, not negative.
The one area in which Trump’s approval ratings have very significantly improved is his handling of the Israel/ Hamas conflict. From July to September the approval rating fell from -7.4% to -13.4%. However, by 23 November approval of his handling of this issue had improved to +2.8%.
It is clear that this improved assessment on the Middle East has not been sufficient to outweigh the various factors contributing to an overall very significant decline in support.
What is the significance of this measurable decline?
First, it suggests that the Democrats should have a very good chance of winning control of the House of Representatives next November and an outside chance of winning control of the Senate. I don’t take very seriously the attempted gerrymanders. I suspect that there is a very real chance that this effort will backfire.
Second, the decline and its possible electoral consequences in 2026 may well lead to further fraying of the MAGA universe.
Third, it suggests that Trump will not win a third term. I am confident that if he thinks he could win Trump will endeavour to manufacture a case for a third term. I have seen Steve Bannon’s confident assertion that Trump ’28 will definitely happen. The reason I don’t believe it will happen is that unless the Democrats perform spectacularly badly in the House from 2026 or err in their selection of a presidential candidate I don’t think Trump can win an election in 2028 if he was to run.
That is a glimmer of light at the end of a long dark tunnel.
Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American <heathercoxrichardson@substack.com>
Last week, a poll conducted for Global EV Alliance, made up of electric vehicle driver associations around the world, found that 52% of Americans would avoid buying a Tesla for political reasons.
Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk pumped more than $290 million into electing President Donald J. Trump and supporting the Republicans in 2024. After taking office, Trump named Musk to head the “Department of Government Efficiency,” a group that slashed through government programs and fired civil servants.
In response, protesters organized “Tesla Takedowns,” gathering at Tesla dealerships to urge people not to buy the vehicles. The protests spread internationally. In March, Trump advertised Teslas on the South Lawn of the White House to try to help slumping sales, to no avail.
In September, consumers flexed their muscle over parent company Disney’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show on ABC after pressure from Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr over Kimmel’s comments following the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. About three million subscribers canceled Disney+ in September, while Hulu, which Disney owns, lost 4.1 million. Monthly cancellations previously had averaged 1.2 million and 1.9 million, respectively. While not all of those cancellations could be chalked up to consumer anger over Kimmel’s suspension—Disney subscription prices went up at around the same time—Kimmel was back on the air in five days.
Every day, I am struck by all the ways in which we are reliving the 1890s.In that era too, consumers organized, using their buying power to affect politics. As the first general secretary of the National Consumers League, Florence Kelley, put it: “To live means to buy, to buy means to have power, to have power means to have responsibility.”
After the Civil War, an economic boom in the North combined with the loss of young men in the war to make education more accessible to young white women. By 1870, girls made up the majority of high school graduates. Fewer than 2% of college-age Americans went to college; women made up 21% of that group. Away from the confines of home, these privileged young women studied social problems and the means of addressing them while they developed friendships with like-minded classmates.
In the mid-1880s, those women began to experiment with using their talents and newfound friendships to repair the nation’s social fabric that had been torn by urbanization and industrialization. To recreate a web of social responsibility in the growing industrial cities, young middle-class women moved into ethnic working-class neighborhoods to minister to the people living there. Jane Addams, who opened Chicago’s Hull-House with Ellen Gates Starr in 1889, rejected the idea of a nation divided by haves and have-nots. She believed that all individuals were fundamentally interconnected. “Hull-House was soberly opened on the theory that the dependence of classes on each other is reciprocal,” Addams later wrote.
The people who lived in these “settlement houses” dedicated themselves to filing down the sharp edges of industrialization, with its tenement housing, low wages, long hours, child labor, and disease, along with polluted air and water and unregulated food. They turned their education to addressing the immediate problems in front of them, collecting statistics to build a larger picture of the social costs of industrialization, and lobbying government officials and businessmen to improve the condition of workers, especially women and children.
They soon discovered a different lever for change.
In the midterm election of 1890, politicians recognized the power of women to swing the vote for or against a political party. When Republicans got shellacked, their leaders blamed women, who were increasingly the family shoppers, for urging their husbands to vote against the party that had forced through the McKinley Tariff of that year, raising tariff rates and thus raising consumer prices. Thomas Reed, the Republican speaker of the House, complained the party had been defeated by “the Shopping Woman.”
Historian Kathy Peiss notes that between 1885 and 1910, the six women’s magazines known as the “big six” were founded, including Ladies Home Journal, McCall’s, and Good Housekeeping. By 1895, advertisements were strategically placed near recipes throughout the magazines, and brand names were scattered through their stories, a recognition of women’s role as shoppers.
Increasingly, reform-minded women were turning to women’s roles as consumers to reshape American industrialism. They came to believe that the “ultimate responsibility” for poor conditions “lodge[s] in the consumer.” Leveraging the power of consumption could force employers to pay higher wages, establish better conditions, and protect workers. In 1891, Josephine Shaw Lowell, whose brother Robert Gould Shaw had commanded Black soldiers in the Massachusetts 54th in the 1863 Second Battle of Fort Wagner, helped to form the Consumer’s League of the City of New York (CLCNY), patterned after a similar English organization, to rally consumers to support better conditions for the workers who made the goods they bought.
In 1899, Lowell and Jane Addams founded the National Consumers League, with Florence Kelley at its head. The organization worked to combat child labor and poor working conditions and, in an era when milk was commonly adulterated with chalk and formaldehyde and candies were decorated with lead paint, lobbied for government regulation of food and drugs.
Today, the relationship between consumption and reform has taken on heightened meaning after the Tesla and the Disney boycotts. The day after Thanksgiving is the start of the holiday shopping season, and like their predecessors of a century ago, reformers are focusing on consumers’ power to push back on the policies of the Trump administration, launching a campaign they call “We Ain’t Buying It.” “We aren’t just consumers; we’re community builders,” their website says. “We’re driving the change we want to see, and demanding respect.”
As Joy-Ann Reid put it in an Instagram video: “Dear retailers who’ve decided you don’t like diversity, equity, and inclusion, or you really love ICE and you have no problem with them busting into your establishments to drag people away: Here’s the thing. We ain’t buying it. I mean, for real, for real, we ain’t buyin’ it.”
She explained: “We’re gonna spend our money with businesses who actually respect our dollars, respect our communities, and respect our diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are going to buy from people who respect immigrants, who respect immigrants’ rights, and respect freedom and liberty. We are going to buy from establishments that respect our right to vote and our right to live in a free society. And if you ain’t that, we ain’t buying it.”
“Let’s show them our power,” she told listeners. “Let’s show them what we can do together.”—
This restaurant, complete with Lebanese chef, is a wonderful find. We chose a hommos Beiruti w/ Onion, Parsley, Cumin, Tomato dip with bread, with much more bread on offer, and a vegetarian platter. The vegetarian items were generous and varied – fried cauliflower, beetroot humous, the best eggplant I have eaten since a meal in Izmir, pickled vegetables, potato harra, tabouli, falafel and another dip with the amount of chili that makes it delicious rather than inedible. Mint tea and a delicious mint lemonade accompanied the meal. We needed to take a box away – and plan a family dinner there in the near future.
It’s not every day that there is a wedding at The Lodge.
In fact, until Anthony Albanese and Jodie Haydon tied the knot there on November 29, the site had never hosted such an occasion, with this being the first time an Australian Prime Minister has wed while in office.
Under a bright and sunny Canberra sky, the bride, 46, made her way down the grassy aisle at the official residence of the Prime Minister in a contemporary long-sleeved gown from Sydney’s Romance Was Born label, which was embroidered with Australian natives.
Carrying a bouquet of yellow roses, white orchids and eucalyptus leaves, the financial advisor was accompanied by her parents, Bill and Pauline, to the tune of Ben Folds’ song ‘The Luckiest’.
Having given his speech writer the day off, Albanese, 62, pledged vows that he’d prepared himself.
“We are absolutely delighted to share our love and commitment to spending our future lives together, in front of our family and closest friends,” the newlyweds shared in a statement afterwards.
Who attended Anthony Albanese’s wedding?
The big day was an intimate affair with just 80 members of their families and close friends in attendance. Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong also watched on.
Ella walked Toto down the aisle. (Credit: Getty )
How did Anthony Albanese meet Jodie Haydon?
The fairytale romance between the pair started in 2020 when they met at a function and bonded over their love of the South Sydney Rugby League Club. Albanese told 60 Minutes she “had him at “‘up the Rabbitohs!’”
The PM proposed to Haydon on the balcony at the Lodge on Valentine’s Day in February 2024, with a bespoke ring from Nicola Cerrrone he designed for the occasion.
While celebrities and foreign world leaders failed to make the cut, Anthony’s dog Toto was the ring bearer. The sweet cavoodle donned a white lace dress that matched with Haydon’s niece Ella, 5, who was her flower girl.
During their reception, the pair shared their first dance to Frank Sinatra’s ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. Anthony’s son Nathan, who he shares with ex-wife Carmel Tebbutt, gave a speech.
The couple is understood to have paid for the nuptials themselves. They spent the days following their “I do’s” honeymooning at an undisclosed location within Australia.
During their years together, Jodie has accompanied Anthony across the world.
Jodie was hosted at the White House by then US President Joe Biden and his wife Jill. She was also a guest at the coronation of King Charles in 2023.
She also previously taken on roles associated with being the partner of the Prime Minister such as being the Patron of the National Portrait Gallery, which will now likely increase.
“Did I see my life panning out this way? Absolutely not,” she told 60 Minutes.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley weighs in on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Jodie Hayton’s wedding.
“I wish Anthony and Jodie every happiness,” Ms Ley told Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell.
“A wedding day is a very special day indeed.
Nationals’ leader David Littleproud said he was happy to see the PM tie the knot, noting that Ms Haydon was already representing the nation by Albanese’s side. “It’s great to see the PM has someone who loves him and will be with him. It is a tough and lonely job, let alone prime minister,” he told ABC’s Insiders “Jodie has already stepped up on the international stage and represented us in such a classy way for some time and now they’ve solidified their partnership with marriage, and I think good on him.
Labor strikes deal with Greens to overhaul environment laws
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has struck an eleventh-hour deal with the Greens to pass Labor’s overhaul of Australia’s environment laws before parliament breaks for the summer recess.
Albanese and Environment Minister Murray Watt on Thursday morning outlined a series of concessions to the Greens to strengthen protection of native forests and bushland, and to carve out fossil fuel projects from fast-track and national interest approval pathways.
Under the changes, regional forestry agreements in NSW and Tasmania and high-risk agricultural land clearing will be brought under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act from July 1, 2027.
The move will anger farmers and some forestry groups, but Labor tried to sweeten the deal with a $300 million forestry fund, which Albanese said would deliver a “bigger” and more sustainable logging industry.
Outside the EPBC Act, the Greens also secured an additional $50 million for the public broadcaster ABC to produce Australian content.
The prime minister also revealed that a series of changes would be made to appease business concerns.
Specifically, the government will make clearer a power that would allow the minister to kill off projects that are deemed to have “unacceptable impacts” before they are fully assessed.
Labor will also impose stricter conditions on the powers of a new National Environmental Protection Agency, imposing a 14-day limit on stop-work orders and requiring the NEPA to have more evidence before such orders can be imposed.
It will also clarify the definitions for a clause that requires projects to have a “net gain” for the environment.
The new NEPA will come into effect from July 1, 2026, and the government hopes to have agreements in place with states by thethat will allow them to assess projects against state and federal standards concurrently.
The unacceptable impacts test and net gain test will come into effect from July 1, 2027.
“When we came to government, we promised we would reform Australia’s broken environmental laws,” Albanese told a press conference in Canberra. “Today, we deliver that promise … These sensible, responsible and balanced laws are good for business and good for the environment.”
But the Coalition will attack Labor for carving out gas projects from the new national interest test.
Greens leader Larissa Waters said her party was “determined to get shit done” and the deal with Labor was a sign of that.
However, she criticised Labor for refusing to make carbon emissions part of the considerations for whether a project should be approved. Under the current proposal, projects that produce more than 100,000 tonnes of emissions each year have to report their emissions profile and abatement strategies, but these do not form part of the assessment process.
“The government refused to include climate considerations in the act, and that is why we need Greens in parliament, and that is what we will keep fighting for,” Waters said. “Our laws should protect us from the climate crisis, and we will keep pushing on that.”
The Australian Financial Review on Wednesday revealed that Waters and the Greens environment spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, were meeting with Albanese to hash out the final terms of an agreement.
The new laws seek to accelerate approval of major projects such as renewables and housing, while also giving a national environmental protection agency powers to prevent the destruction of nature and to punish lawbreakers with fines of up to $825 million or a percentage of revenue based on any damage caused.
The government on Tuesday released 11 amendments it was willing to make to get the laws passed through the Senate, where Labor does not hold a majority and needs either Coalition or Greens votes for legislative changes.
Sources familiar with negotiations but not authorised to speak publicly were insisting late Wednesday that a deal could be with the Greens or the Coalition, and it would go down to the wire.
Staffers from all sides were working well into Wednesday night, with many skipping Christmas parties. The Coalition was still sending proposed changes at 10pm, according to sources.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley on Tuesday demanded to elevate negotiations to the leader level, but Albanese said she had rejected his request to meet in person to talk about a deal.
“I offered to meet with Sussan Ley, and that wasn’t taken up,” Albanese said, though this was refuted by the Coalition.
Ronald Mizen is the Financial Review’s political correspondent, reporting from the press gallery at Parliament House, Canberra. Connect with Ronald on Twitter. Email Ronald at ronald.mizen@afr.comSave
Paul Bongiorno Inside Murray Watt’s environmental deal
Parliament’s last sitting week for the year was an intense guessing game, as Environment Minister Murray Watt haggled with competing sides on how best to reform Australia’s environment laws.
Watt had put everything on the line politically, creating a deadline to finalise what was in fact a five-year journey to reach a destination everybody agreed was needed, namely the implementation of recommendations proposed by businessman Graeme Samuel after his review of a framework that had been in place for 25 years.
Watt, the ebullient Queenslander, who has become Anthony Albanese’s chief fixer, delivered the government a significant win after convincing the 10 Greens he needed in the Senate that the perfect no longer needed to be the enemy of the good.
The demands of the Greens’ environmental protections lead negotiator, Sarah Hanson-Young, weren’t quite as robust as some of her colleagues would have liked, but, in the end, Hanson-Young viewed the amended bill as a vast improvement on the version that was originally presented.
Coal and gas projects would no longer be fast-tracked and, critically, there was significantly less delay in ending the logging of native forests. There was also more protection of the natural environment and endangered species.
Earlier in the week, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley suspected Watt and Albanese were about to do what she described as a “dirty deal” with the Greens. Her concerns were principally over the fate of natural gas projects, which she claims are essential to providing affordable energy.
The Coalition was most unhappy about the proposed environment protection agency and its ability to heavily fine industry for flouting environmental safeguards.
This was a key recommendation of the Samuel Review and gives Australia for the first time what Albanese says is a strong independent regulator. Samuel told the prime minister he is elated his reforms have finally been implemented.Watt had put everything on the line politically, creating a deadline to finalise what was in fact a five-year journey to reach a destination everybody agreed was needed, namely the implementation of recommendations proposed by businessman Graeme Samuel after his review of a framework that had been in place for 25 years.
The truth is the Coalition was struggling to present consistent demands. Watt says he was dealing not only with shadow minister Angie Bell but also with “multiple Coalition frontbenchers” who had come to him with their own thoughts. It was “quite difficult to then work out who was the actual negotiator and what is their position”. He said he had meetings with Coalition representatives who would say they’ve “got their final list of demands, and then we meet with someone else, and they’ve got other demands”.
Watt bristled at Ley’s criticism of him for “mismanag[ing] this entire process” and, she says, endangering the resources sector that is critical for “our national income”.
Watt says the reformed Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act strikes the right balance between conservation and project developments, which includes housing.
During the tense negotiations this week senior ministers were very nervous about concluding a deal with a fractious Coalition. One cited the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in 2009, signed off by then Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull. Ultimately, that deal was broken, the leader was dumped and the vote failed in parliament.
That has not been Ley’s fate, although the parliamentary year ends with her being regarded as a seat warmer, waiting for one of her conservative rivals to strike.
Things are much more settled under the leadership of Larissa Waters in the Greens party room. A cabinet minister observed: “The Greens all have their say in their party room, but they trust their negotiator, Hanson-Young, and once they have made a decision, stick with it.” The Greens insisted more notice be taken of the potential climate change impact of any environmental or development projects, a view with considerable support, according to the latest Essential Report.
However, the Coalition’s abandonment of the net zero target and the rise of support for One Nation, an even more strident critic of climate science and action, appears to have taken a toll. Polling shows an erosion in the number of Australians who accept climate change is happening and caused by human activity. It now stands at 53 per cent, down from a high of 64 per cent eight years ago.
According to the same poll, 36 per cent of people believe Australia is not doing enough to address climate, against 20 per cent who think it is doing too much.
The opposition seems hell-bent on representing this minority. Rather than welcome Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen taking an active international role as president of policy negotiations for next year’s COP31 in Türkiye, advancing the net zero target set in Paris in 2015, it accuses him of abandoning his portfolio responsibilities.
On Monday, the Coalition came up with the glib phrase that Bowen was now a “part-time minister, full-time president”.
Of course, this is a ridiculous characterisation of the position. Bowen cited a number of examples of ministers in other countries simultaneously carrying out their COP roles while retaining their domestic portfolios. He told parliament that to suggest his new role is a full-time job “is a complete and utter invention, it is a fantasy”.
Ley’s first question to the prime minister on Monday scoffed at government claims that Bowen’s role gave “unprecedented influence” on important international emissions reduction efforts. “Why isn’t this part-time minister, full-time president” using his “unprecedented” influence to lower energy bills for Australians, she asked. The cynicism is breathtaking.
Albanese accused the opposition of “talking Australia down” and ditching bipartisan support for Australians playing key international roles, such as former Liberal finance minister Mathias Cormann, who is now the secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Cormann has been reappointed for a second term, with the government’s support.
Albanese accused the Coalition of failing to address energy shortages and price rises when in government and said their current plan would lead to higher prices because of its negative impact on investment in cheaper renewable energy projects.
The opposition’s other refrain for the week was to ask the government, repeatedly, “When will energy prices come down?” It is a question they cannot themselves answer in regard to their “affordable energy plans”.
Everyone knows the transition to renewables is unavoidably expensive, made worse by almost a decade of Coalition government doing nothing to replace ageing coal-fired power stations.
Ministers avoided providing assurances of early price relief, although Bowen did point to the successful home battery uptake and the way solar panels substantially cut electricity costs for households.
Midweek the new, expanded basket of goods and services included in the monthly consumer price index showed a 0.0 per cent change. That owed more to the fact it was the first in the new series than anything else. More worrying was the annual rate to October rose 3.8 per cent. In Question Time, the opposition avoided tackling Treasurer Jim Chalmers and directed its sole question on the rise in the cost of living to Albanese. It was a curious strategy that suggests it is gun-shy of Chalmers.
Ley reminded the prime minister that earlier in the year he had “promised the Australian people” the country had “turned the corner on inflation” and that the treasurer assured them the government had “inflation under control”.
Albanese is acutely aware of the potency of living costs for voters and accepted that the latest figures “confirm” households are still facing pressures. He noted the withdrawal of state energy subsidies was a contributing factor, but said his government was focused on relief measures and wanted to give assistance.
Chalmers said any decision to continue federal energy bill relief will be made closer to the midyear fiscal review but they can’t be a “permanent feature”. Blunting the opposition’s criticism was its failure at the May election to support the rebates and tax cuts.
Speaking at the National Press Club, shadow treasurer Ted O’Brien attempted to distance the survivors in the Coalition from its ill-fated election policies. He is promising tax cuts next time. His press club address was widely seen as an audition to keep his job should there be a change of leader in the new year.
Cost-of-living issues weren’t worrying Pauline Hanson on Monday night when she served Barnaby Joyce wagyu steaks that retail for about $145 a kilogram. Making the steaks more delicious for both politicians, no doubt, was the fact they came from Gina Rinehart’s cattle company.
Admiration for Australia’s richest person is only one of the things the two right-wing rabble-rousers have in common.
Why Joyce is continuing his flirtation with One Nation and its leader after Hanson’s disgraceful repeat of her burqa stunt in the Senate has his Nationals colleagues shaking their heads. She donned the garment after the Senate refused to allow her motion to ban Muslim face coverings.
This outraged the Senate, particularly its Muslim members. When the Senate resolved to eject Hanson from the chamber, she refused to leave, causing a two-hour suspension of proceedings.
This contempt of the chamber led to Labor, the Greens and some of the cross bench voting to suspend her from the Senate for seven days – a rare event – and from representing the Senate on parliamentary delegations.
The government’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, said Hanson had “been parading prejudice as protest for decades”. Unrepentant, the Queensland senator says she will run again and “the people will judge me at the next election”.
Joyce quit the Nationals on Thursday to sit as an independent for the rest of this term. He is widely expected to head One Nation’s New South Wales Senate ticket at the next election.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on November 28, 2025 as “Murray Watt’s environmental factors training”.
Literature Cambridge
Some highlights coming up in 2026
Katherine Mansfield: Stories of Love. Live online course March-April 2026.
Join us for a new course on Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), one of the greatest short story writers of the twentieth century. In this course, we will explore her stories about love, its many shapes and its hopes, disappointments, and betrayals.
Six sessions, weekly on Thursdays, 19 March to 23 April 2026, 6.00-8.00 pm British Summer Time. Further information and booking page.
Live online course with Cambridge scholars Dr Fred Parker and Dr Jan Parker. Tuesdays, weekly, 20 January to 24 February 2026, 6.00-8.00 pm UK time. Live online.
We will study Shakespeare’s Pericles, All’s Well that Ends Well, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest; plus Euripides’ Alcestis and Ion. A rare chance to study these brilliant, intriguing plays together.
• Toni MorrisonCourse. A new course studying four novels by Nobel Prize winning writer Toni Morrison. May-June 2026
•Literary Gardens. We repeat this hugely popular course which studies gardens in literature from Alice in Wonderland to The Waste Land. January-March 2026.
• Doris Lessing: Women and Destiny. We repeat this superb course on four powerful novels by Doris Lessing. September-October 2026.
There are many other online courses coming up; please see our website for details.
Dervla McTiernan’s email are always interesting. This is part of her most recent:
I’ve been telling you the story of the writing of my new novel. I started off, in September, telling you about the three ideas I sent to my editors way back in February 2024, and then last month I told you which idea my editors had chosen (the same idea you had chosen by overwhelming majority!)*
Obviously, once the idea is nailed down, I have to go off and write the book. In this case, I wrote three drafts before I sent the book off to my editors.
So … what did they think? And what did I do from there? Here’s a bit of a step by step of how I like to edit a book, starting from my editors’ notes.
Let’s start with an extract from the notes sent by my editors. I’ve redacted any key information here that would run the risk of spoiling the book for you.
My first step after I receive the editorial letter is usually to go for a long walk (or three) and really think about how I want readers to feel when they read this book, from the beginning to the end. Then I write my own summary of the notes, in my own words. At this point I’m often making decisions about how I’m going to fix any problems my editors have identified. Here’s part of the summary I made for the edit of this book:
My next step is to do a chapter-by-chapter breakdown. This is where I break out the specific changes that need to be made to every chapter to give effect to the changes I’ve decided need to be made to the book, based on the editorial notes and the decisions I’ve made. I’m sharing this so that you can see the format, but obviously here I’ve really had to redact a lot, or risk ruining this book for you.
And the last step is to do a daily work plan that lays out all the work and when I’m going to do it, right up to my deadline.
After that, I get down to the writing. First in my notebook (there’s just something about pen and paper that helps the ideas flow), and then back into Scrivener when I’m fully warmed up. After that, I get down to the writing. First in my notebook (there’s just something about pen and paper that helps the ideas flow), and then back into Scrivener when I’m fully warmed up.
This is what the layout of my Scrivener project will usually look like when I’m really getting into the edit. The label colour on the far right tells me the status of the chapter. Green is done, red means a full rewrite is needed, and orange a lighter rewrite.
And that’s it! When the book is finished (again) I compile the Scrivener manuscript into a Word document, and share it with my editors. For this book, we did three rounds of edits before we were all really satisfied and happy to send the book into copyediting. That’s a LOT of work, but for me, it’s the only way I can put this book in your hands, knowing I’ve done everything I can for the characters and for you as a reader.
*Dervla McTiernan’s previous email provided recipients with a list of three possibilities for her next novel. People voted on these.
British playwright Tom Stoppard, who won Oscar for ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ dead at 88
By Max Saltman
Tom Stoppard speaks at The Hay Festival in Wales in June 2010. David Levenson/Getty Images
The award-winning British playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard has died, according to his talent agency United Agents. He was 88.
Stoppard, who was born in Czechoslovakia, was perhaps best known in the US for his Oscar-winning screenplay for the 1998 film “Shakespeare in Love,” which he co-wrote with Marc Norman.
More recently, he won his fifth Tony Award in 2023 for his play “Leopoldstadt.” He won his first Tony in 1968 for “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” his metatheatrical spin on “Hamlet.”
Norman told CNN in an email that Stoppard was “a joy to work with.”
“He understood that Shakespeare, that icon, was an entertainer just like we were, and that spirit drove our screenplay,” Norman said. “My thoughts go out to his family.”
In a statement posted to its website, United Agents said: “We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved client and friend, Tom Stoppard, has died peacefully at home in Dorset, surrounded by his family.
“He will be remembered for his works, for their brilliance and humanity, and for his wit, his irreverence, his generosity of spirit and his profound love of the English language,” the statement continued. “It was an honor to work with Tom and to know him.”
King Charles III, whose mother Queen Elizabeth knighted Stoppard in 1997, said in a statement Saturday that he and Queen Camilla were “deeply saddened to learn of the death of one of our greatest writers, Sir Tom Stoppard.”
“A dear friend who wore his genius lightly, he could, and did, turn his pen to any subject, challenging, moving and inspiring his audiences, borne from his own personal history,” Charles wrote. “We send our most heartfelt sympathy to his beloved family. Let us all take comfort in his immortal line: ‘Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.’”
Born Tomas Straussler in Zlin, in what is now the Czech Republic, Stoppard was from a secular Jewish family who fled the Nazi invasion of the country in 1939, first to Singapore, then to Australia and India. Many of Stoppard’s extended family members were murdered in the Holocaust.
After young Tomas’ father died when the Japanese sank his boat off the Singaporean coast, his mother married an Englishman, Kenneth Stoppard, and the family moved to the United Kingdom. Tomas Straussler became Tom Stoppard.
Stoppard, who briefly worked as a journalist before his success in theatre, had a wide oevre. Alongside his many plays, he wrote radio dramas, satirical films like Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil,” as well as film adaptations of books, including his 2012 screenplay for “Anna Karenina” and his 1987 adaptation of JG Ballard’s roman-a-clef “Empire of the Sun.”
The playwright wrote in a 2024 essay published by the Huntington Theatre company that while he was born a Czech Jew, his life in Britain and his English stepfather had turned him into an “honorary Englishman.”
“I knew I was – used to be Czech, but I didn’t feel Czech,” Stoppard wrote. “I felt about as English as you could get.”
Later in life, Stoppard began to explore his personal history through his work. His most recent play, “Leopoldstadt,” traces a Jewish family in Vienna from the 1890s through World War II, obliquely referencing his family’s story.
“It’s been at the back of my mind,” Stoppard said of his family history in a 2022 interview. “It’s something I’ve never used. It felt like unfinished business.”
CNN’s Max Foster contributed.
See review of Hermione Lee Tom Stoppard A Life Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 23 Feb 2021, on my blog of 2 March 2022.
Tom Stoppard’s Ordinary Magic
Henry Oliver from The Common Reader <commonreader@substack.com>inbox
And so a genius is dead. Tom Stoppard was the most accomplished English playwright since George Bernard Shaw. He had more memorable wit, ideas, and drama in every page than most writers manage in a lifetime. He revived the artful art, the conscious artifice of theatre, drawing into his circle of dramatic magic all the oppositional forces of the modern stage and summoning from them something greater than had been imagined possible. He was the true impresario, able to enchant with words that seemed so plain and expected, one was always truly shocked at how unexpected he made them. He could do everything from absurdism to glee, from the philosophical to the zany.
Stoppard’s genius was to make a confluence of the highbrow and the lowbrow. Jumpers is a satire of academic philosophy, written in the sort of dialogue critics inevitably call dazzlingly clever; but it contains a set of gymnasts, who make human pyramids on stage, and, at one point, the philosopher opens the door with half his face covered in shaving cream with a tortoise under his arm and a bow and arrow in his hand.
John Willingham The Last Woman TCU Press Adult historical fiction, October 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
The Last Woman is based on the real Frenchy McCormick who lived from 1852 to 1941, eventually becoming the sole resident of Tascosa, Texas. She remained there for thirty years after the death of her partner, Mick McCormick, with whom she had travelled from Dodge City to Texas. Earlier, as Catherine McCain, she had travelled from Baton Rouge to St. Louis and then to Dodge City. From this sketchy history, John Willingham became interested in developing a story around Catherine’s journey from Baton Rouge to Tascosa in the 1880s, leading to the creation of a fictional version of Frenchy, whose life might well have been close to the one he depicts in The Last Woman. Willingham has used his knowledge of the social and economic environment of the time to weave a story that provides an explanation for the impetus for Frenchy’s various moves and final desire to remain in Tascosa. This story becomes one of three women, only one of whom survived, dealing with not only the inhospitable landscape, but the need to support themselves in a masculine environment in which the church and its teachings held sway, women’s truth giving way to the power of the law and the church working against them in unison. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
SJ Bennett The Queen Who Came in from the Cold Book 2 of Her Majesty The Queen Investigates, Crooked Lane Books, November 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
Although a murder has its complications, not least that to make a novel based around such a crime fun as well as an exercise in sleuthing, SJ Bennett has achieved this with elegance. The Queen Who Came in from the Cold is such an entertaining read, beginning with its references to Mrs Jones’ foibles – and, of course, Princess Margaret was indeed Mrs Jones, albeit one with a title and tiara – the introduction of Queen Elizabeth chattering with the Duke of Edinburgh while trying to accomplish her work in the royal Daimler and the intricacies of the phone and speaker which mysteriously disconnects as Henry Coxon regales Pavel Michalowski with his royal gossip.
Queen Elizabeth is to be taken from her customary lifestyle, the Royal Train, the Royal Yacht Britannica, Buckingham Palace, gracious international encounters, replete with comforting protocol to a world in which she indeed must encounter vastly different aspirations. Some threaten the Royals’ beloved protocol, and possibly even more beloved, the Royal Yacht Britannica. See Books: Reviews for the complete review/
Michelle Salter Murder in Trafalgar Square Boldwood Books, September 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley and Boldwood Books, for this uncorrected proof for review.
Cosy murder mysteries are not my favourite, and that is possibly why I found the beginning of this novel a little slow. However, I had been tempted by the suffragette aspect of the work and quickly found that my enthusiasm for that theme was justified by the way in which it was developed. However, my appreciation of Michelle Salter’s murder mystery does not rely upon my initial interest.
This novel highlights characterisation through both historical figures like the Pankhursts and fictional suffragists, illustrating the diversity of the women’s movement. Historical events, such as the repudiation of their aims by politicians initially seen as sympathetic to their cause, violent and sexually motivated treatment of the women as they demonstrate, and the range of activities through which they attempted to bring their cause to public notice are informative. Alongside a murder mystery, unfolds a thoroughly researched story of the suffragists, their aims, and the range of ideas and backgrounds that informed their cause. The police are given a human face through Detective Inspector Flynn and his relationship with his sixteen-year-old daughter whose interest in the WSPU is a source of concern. Journalists’ perspectives are also explored, all these aspects ensuring that the story presents a balanced view. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Banijay U.K. Signs Development Deal With Ellie Wood’s Clearwood Films, Sets Adaptation of Barbara Pym Novel ‘Excellent Women’ as First Project
Banijay U.K. has signed a development deal with award-winning producer Ellie Wood (“The Dig,” “Stonehouse”) and her company Clearwood Films and, as the first project, acquired rights to Barbara Pym’s classic 1953 novel “Excellent Women” with an option to develop further Pym books.
Under the terms of the deal, Clearwood will have access to funding to develop ideas and treatments as well as support from central Banijay U.K. resources including finance, legal and business affairs. Once greenlit, Clearwood has the option to partner with Banijay U.K. companies to co-produce. It follows on from a first look deal between Banijay Rights, Banijay’s distribution arm, and Clearwood Films, which ran from 2019. Banijay Rights will continue to distribute Clearwood projects.
Added Wood: “I’m thrilled to be working with Patrick and continuing Clearwood Films’ partnership with the wider Banijay family. I’m particularly excited to be developing the novels of one of my favourite authors, the inimitable Barbara Pym. Just as Jilly Cooper’s Rivals gave us a ‘Cooperverse’, I look forward to creating a ‘Pymverse’ and bringing this iconic author’s uniquely British tales of comic observation and unrequited love not only to her legions of fans but also to a wider TV audience.”
Upcoming Clearwood projects include an as-yet unannounced single scripted project for a linear broadcaster while Wood is executive producer on Film4‘s adaptation of Deborah Levy’s novel “Hot Milk,” starring Emma Mackey, Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps, which recently premiered at the Berlinale. Meanwhile, “49 Days,” a political drama by acclaimed writer John Preston, based on the tumultuous short-lived premiership of Liz Truss, backed by Banijay is also in development.
Wood previously produced the multiple BAFTA-nominated Netflix film “The Dig,” starring Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, Lily James and Johnny Flynn. In 2023, she produced “Stonehouse,” starring Matthew MacFadyen and Keeley Hawes, for ITV/Britbox.
Barbara Pym’s Quartet in Autumn to be staged in 2026 – email from The Barbara Pym Society
This spring (7 May – 13 June 2026) in London, you can see the first ever stage adaptation of Barbara Pym’s Quartet in Autumn. Directed by Dominic Dromgoole, former artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe and the Bush Theatre, and adapted by Samantha Harvey, whose novel Orbital won the 2024 Booker Prize, the play will feature in Arcola Theatre’s Spring 2026 programme.
The production “brings to life a wry, poignant and hopeful meditation on later life through the lives of four Londoners on the verge of retirement. A rallying cry against loneliness, this is an ode to ageing, friendship and the strange poetry of everyday life,” says the Arcola, one of London’s leading off-West End theatres.
ATV Today
Barbara Pym to be adapted for the stage for the first time, with Samantha Harvey debuting as playwright
Barbara Pym, long cherished as a novelist of the quietly seismic, is heading to the stage for the first time. Quartet in Autumn, her 1977 tale of four London office workers edging towards retirement, will receive its world premiere at the Arcola Theatre this spring in a new adaptation by 2024 Booker prize winner Samantha Harvey. The production, directed by former Globe and Bush Theatre artistic director Dominic Dromgoole, runs from 7 May to 13 June.
Harvey, whose novel Orbital was widely acclaimed last year, makes her playwriting debut with the project. She describes Pym’s novel as a work of “humour and sadness, which exist brilliantly at once in every sentence”, adding that its quartet of characters “live enclosed lives that unfold as if on a stage”. The result, she says, was “a burning thought” she had never experienced before: to turn the book into a play.
Set in 1970s London, Quartet in Autumn follows Letty, Marcia, Edwin and Norman – four colleagues whose lives are as circumscribed as they are quietly yearning. Marcia hoards tins and withdraws from the world; Letty toys with dreams of elsewhere; Edwin takes refuge in liturgy; Norman grumbles at the onrush of modernity.
Between them is a kind of fragile social contract, a way of getting through the days as the city shifts around them. Harvey calls it “a tender portrait of loneliness in a changing world… and the grace that can be found in the ordinary”.
Jane Austen’s Families
We are delighted to offer a new course on Jane Austen’s Families, a live online course with Dr Tom Zille, University of Cambridge. This course will examine how the lives of characters in four of Austen’s novels are shaped by family. This was an age when the role of the family was changing under the influence of imperialism, the enlightenment, and industrialisation. We will consider the ways in which Austen’s portrayal of families was shaped by her own life experience and circumstances. Lecture list • Dependents: Sense and Sensibility (1811) • The Family Circle: Pride and Prejudice (1813) • Distant Relations: Mansfield Park (1814) • The Smooth Surface of Family Union: Persuasion (1818) Saturdays, 11 April to 23 May 2026 live online 18.00-20.00 British Summer Time 19.00-21.00 Central European Summer Time Morning/lunchtime in the Americas Dr Trudi TateDirector, Literature Cambridge Ltd www.literaturecambridge.co.uk
The Economist November 12 2025
The Gilded Age holds lessons for today, says Richard White
The professor of American history at Stanford University considers what might come next
By Richard White, emeritus professor of American history at Stanford University
In 1894, over the objection of the governor and the mayor, President Grover Cleveland sent American soldiers into Chicago and then invoked the Insurrection Act to suppress strikes and protests. His move precipitated the violence it was supposed to prevent. Two years later, Cleveland, the only president before Donald Trump to win a second term after losing a re-election bid, had become a pariah. A bitter presidential election between William Jennings Bryan and William McKinley underscored the deep divisions and glaring problems of the Gilded Age. The era was coming to an end, but not as the result of McKinley’s victory. It sank under its own weight of accumulated problems and aborted solutions.
What lessons does that period hold for today? The 1894 moment resonates in this second Gilded Age. Yet these two eras are not doppelgangers—they have distinct and important differences. Both came at the end of great struggles: the American civil war and the cold war. Victories over rival systems produced euphoric predictions of hegemony and consensus, but the ensuing Gilded Ages instead became revolutionary periods without either revolutionary politics or any dominant social vision. Both transformed the economy. The first turned a nation of independent producers and slaves into a nation of discontented wage labourers. The second shredded the social safety-net that arose in the 20th century and ushered in the gig economy with its associated precarity.
And both eras were periods of technological progress, economic growth and rough parity between parties. Mass immigration produced a diverse population and compensated for declining birth rates. But festering beneath the gilded surface that gave the eras their name lurked political paralysis, corruption, gross economic inequality, a distrust of politicians and institutions, racial conflict and declining material well-being.
In each period intense partisanship produced few lasting political accomplishments. Obamacare may be the only successful constructive rather than destructive legislation of the second Gilded Age. America had its age of Jackson and Roosevelt, but there was no age of Cleveland, and I doubt there will be an age of Trump.
The politics of both periods were backward-looking. Anti-monopolism, present in both political parties, astutely assessed the problems of the first Gilded Age, but was ultimately reactionary, longing for an earlier world of free labour, small producers and Protestant values. The MAGA movement and legal originalists also envisage a return to an earlier America. The legacy of both periods was, and is, their problems—not their solutions.There are no laws of history, except one: it does not go backwards
Charles Francis Adams, president of the Union Pacific Railroad, described the 19th-century tycoons he knew in a way that resonates today. They were “big financially”, but were “mere money-getters and traders” who were “unattractive and uninteresting”.
In the first Gilded Age solutions percolated to the surface only to be blocked by the courts. But they resurfaced later. In the 20th century, new bureaucracies gained power and autonomy. A producer-based economy yielded to a consumer-based one. Overcoming the courts required constitutional amendments: to shift taxation from tariffs to income taxes, institute direct election of senators and enfranchise women.
In the current Gilded Age, attempts are being made to smash some of those reforms—and indeed even some older reforms from the Reconstruction era. But whatever short-term success they achieve, they will ultimately fail. There are no laws of history, except one: it does not go backwards.
For clues to America’s future, consider its problems. There is surprising consensus across the political spectrum on some of them: the struggle to make ends meet for many citizens, corruption, and political and economic unfairness. Other challenges, such as climate change and the difficulty of funding the government, cannot be avoided by denying them.
The Progressive era that followed the first Gilded Age was flawed—it betrayed black Americans and immigrants—but it was forward-looking. It drew upon ideas from both parties and emphasised creating institutions rather than destroying them. The current Gilded Age will end when a new movement abandons today’s politics and tackles the all-too-obvious problems of the past half-century. Periods that follow Gilded Ages are eras in which politics catches up with revolutionary change. ■
: Getty
After democrats, a small number of Republicans have come to Mark Kelly’s defense. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, *who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial and later won re-election in 2022 against a Trump-endorsed challenger, expressed her support for Kelly in a post on Tuesday.
“Senator Kelly valiantly served our country as an aviator in the U.S. Navy before later completing four space shuttle missions as a NASA astronaut,” she wrote.
“To accuse him and other lawmakers of treason and sedition for rightfully pointing out that servicemembers can refuse illegal orders is reckless and flat-out wrong. The Department of Defense and FBI surely have more important priorities than this frivolous investigation.” Murkowski added.
See my review of Senator Lisa Murkowski’s autobiography, Far from Home An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington, D.C. Penguin Random House Christian publishing | Forum books, June 2025, in the blog of 22 October 2025.
Australia and India formalise new screen partnerships, including major theatrical pathway for Australian films
An Australian delegation fronted by Rachel Griffiths and Lion director Garth Davis is attending the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) this week, where several agreements between the countries are being formalised, including a new theatrical pathway that aims to give Australian films a more consistent presence across India’s cinemas.
Leading the Australian presence in Goa is the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM), under director Mitu Bhowmick Lange, who also heads distributor Mind Blowing Films. Both organisations will sign an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with IFFI and India’s national screen agency, the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC).
Separate agreements will also be signed between Deakin University and India’s premier film schools, the Film and Television Institute of India and the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies, as well as between Mind Blowing Films and PVR INOX, India’s largest cinema chain.
The agreements land at a time of rising collaboration between the two territories. India became Australia’s newest official co-production partner in November 2023, and although no projects have yet been delivered under the treaty, there are understood to be several projects in development. Indian cinema is also booming in Australia, with a recent report finding it now consistently outranks local film at the box office.
Speaking to IF, Lange says the three MOUs have been intentionally designed to touch all points along the creative pipeline, from students, established storytellers and audiences.
“India and Australia, we’ve never been closer,” she says, speaking both politically and culturally.
“I feel this is the right time for such ambitious and historic MOUs to be signed, because it’s going to create these incredible pathways.”
The deal with PVR INOX will see the multiplex chain become the “home of Australian cinema in India”. The country is the world’s largest English-language content market, yet releases of Australian films have so far been sporadic. With more consistency, Lange says the benefit will be proper audience data for the first time, such as what location responds, which demographics show up and what kind of titles resonate.
“Once we start releasing films, we will have this precious data, and we’ll be able to do more. The marketing will be more strategic,” she says.
While there is no formal commitment as yet to the volume of titles PVR INOX will show or the kind of screen space they will get, Lange says the intent is to build a clear pathway for Australian distributors and filmmakers. Mind Blowing is also in discussion with Screen Australia about how they can add support.
Lange released anthology My Melbourne in India earlier this year, and is enthusiastic about the potential of Australian films to resonate. The Aussie version of Masterchef was for a long time one of the most popular shows on Indian television, outperforming the local version. Similarly, she grew up in India watching films like Crocodile Dundee and Picnic at Hanging Rock on public broadcaster Doordarshan.
“The good thing about India is that even a small audience in India is a big audience,” she says.
“If we have the films coming in, slowly and surely, audiences will come. It just needs to be a sustainable collective effort. We are opening that door… and I feel very optimistic.”
In a statement, PVR INOX CEO Kamal Gianchandani said he was excited to showcase fresh Australian storytelling in India.
“There is a growing appetite among Indian audiences for global content, and Australian films bring a unique voice and cultural richness,” he said.
“This partnership marks the beginning of what we hope will be a long and meaningful exchange between our markets.”
The MOU between IFFM, IFFI and NFDC establishes deeper festival and market collaboration, including mutual showcases and expanded opportunities for creatives to meet and exchange ideas. Waves Bazaar and IFFM will also establish a co-distribution fund to see South Asian films reach wider audiences in India and Australia through selective financing and shared risk.
From this year, IFFI will spotlight Australian cinema for three consecutive editions, with five to six Australian films programmed annually. IFFI will also bring a formal industry delegation to Melbourne each August during IFFM.
“The point is to have a platform where we all can meet, explore ideas and see the possibilities,” Lange says.
Deakin University’s agreement with Film & Television Institute of India and the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies will see curriculum collaboration, student and faculty exchanges, joint workshops, and new training pathways. Deakin has an established campus in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City).
The uni’s vice president (global engagement) and CEO South Asia Ravneet Pawha said the MOU reflected the institution’s commitment to building bridges between the two countries and enabling young creators to contribute to rapidly evolving creative economy.
“India and Australia are entering a new phase of heightened cross-cultural and multi-sector knowledge engagement. This is especially through creative and digital tech cooperation, where our shared strengths in innovation, technology and education can shape the industries of the future,” he said.
ndian–Australian collaboration is already part of the workflow at Framestore, which operates studios in both Melbourne and Mumbai. The two outposts recently collaborated on pipelines for Ted season 2 and How to Train Your Dragon, and are gearing up to work together on the upcoming sequel of the latter.
Framestore Melbourne head of animation Nicholas Tripodi is among the Australian delegates at IFFI, keen to build stronger ties with India’s rapidly expanding talent base. He will speak at the festival about India’s creative boom and how Australia can be involved in that growth.
“Traditionally, VFX in India has been a bit more about the prep departments – roto, tracking, things like that. Framestore is going about it a bit differently. We’re trying to hire great artists across all departments and really foster that ability for them to take on much more complex parts of the pipeline,” he tells IF.
“That was evidenced on Ted season two, where we had quite a large animation team working hand in hand with our animators locally.”
Other Australian delegates at IFFI include See Pictures producer Jamie Hilton; Alan Dickson, producer of Indo-Australian animation series Smick and Willow; Chris Watson producer, InterWeaver Films,; Sarini Kamini, producer and writer, SKPL; Ana Tiwary, producer; and The Voice 2024 winner, Reuben De Melo. The Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Councillor Nick Reece, is also in attendance.
Delegates will be involved in panels and masterclasses at IFFI, while Griffiths will walk the red carpet for a retrospective screening of Muriel’s Wedding, newly restored in 4K.
Lange is optimistic the next few years will see greater awareness of Australian cinema in India. Further, with the co-production treaty now in place, she believes the goodwill and appetite on both sides creates the strongest conditions yet for collaboration to accelerate.
“The two industries are raring to go. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t take off,” she says.
“Australia has such a huge Indian diaspora as well. There are so many stories that we can tell together; I just hope that we are all able to tell our shared stories – not in a niche way, but in a more mainstream way.”
Valerie Keogh, His Other Woman, Boldwood Books, November 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley and Boldwood Books, for this uncorrected proof for review.
Valeria Keogh’s books always have a twist that logically follows the storyline, rather than emerging from nowhere; she always has an intriguing plot; and her writing is always not only engaging but grammatical. Certainly, she stands out from the crowd with these features. But where she truly excels is in her character development. Keogh is brilliant at developing unpleasant characters, seemingly with little to redeem them. However, somehow these flawed beings become people with whom one wants to engage, to see where their flaws lead them with the hope that they will redeem themselves. Vain hope though this usually is, they almost become people for whom one wishes a positive result. Sometimes, as awful as they undoubtably are, there is no doubt that one wishes them well! See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Keith Warren Lloyd The War Correspondents The Incredible Stories of the Brave Men and Women Who Covered the Fight Against Hitler’s GermanyThe Globe Pequot Publishing Group, Inc. | Lyons Press, October 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
This is a somewhat sprawling memorial to the Second World War correspondents, with its combination of detailed historical events as well as the stories of those who covered them – the war correspondents. The latter includes work undertaken by correspondents in general, and those who are named. There are correspondents whose platform was the print media, others who filmed events, photographers, and graphic artists. Named correspondents include Ernie Pyle, John Steinbeck, Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Ernest Hemingway, Bill Mauldin, Robert Capa, Margaret Bourke-White, Andy Rooney, Martha Gellhorn and Richard Tregaskis. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Set Menus On London Rooftops
London’s packed with incredible rooftop restaurants that allow you to see the Big Smoke in all its glory, with everything from a tropical paradise sitting 14 floors up to terraces with insane views of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Better yet, a lot of these incredible sky-high eateries offer a delicious set menu, meaning breaking the bank isn’t necessary. Here is our guide to the best set menus at rooftop restaurants in London. Last edited by Lisa Moore Last updated on 21st May 2025
Perched on the roof of No.1 Poultry, Coq D’Argent …commands spectacular views across the City and landmarks such as St Paul’s Cathedral, Mansion House, Monument and the Bank of England…[serving] delicious French cooking…an impressive wine and cocktail list…
Set in a prime location just off Regent Street and with a stunning covered rooftop terrace, Aqua Kyoto …Serves deliciously unique Japanese dishes alongside carefully crafted cocktails…[presenting] a combination of omakase sushi and sashimi, alongside signature dishes including the mouth-watering rock shrimp tempura and specials from the robata grill. The selection of bento boxes are the perfect pick-me up whilst shopping in the West End, whilst the popular free flow brunches on Saturdays and Sundays needs to be booked well in advance.
Welcome to Wagtail, our Rooftop Bar and Restaurant, nestled in the eaves of one of the City’s grandest art deco buildings…escape to the skies with unparalleled views, fine wine, exquisite cocktails and delicious food – morning, day, and night. Experts in curating merriment, mischief, and memorable moments. Our late-night license, and resident DJ evenings are the perfect excuse to stay and relax until the early hours.
Based on the top of the suave Novotel Hotel in Canary Wharf, Bōkan is an elegant restaurant-bar that’s spread across three opulent floors and boasts a stunning roof terrace… Of course, the food and drinks menu is everything here. Offering both light bar nibbles and belly-filling main dishes, the chefs have curated a menu of classic European dishes, each of which have had a British twist added to them. From flavoursome cheese boards and charcuterie, to mains such as seasoned Lamb shank and line-caught British Cod, the menu caters for whatever mood you might find yourself in. Rounding things off nicely, the talented mixologists hope their array of cocktails prove to be the perfect companion for a serene night on the roof terrace. With views overlooking the whole of London, it’s the ideal spot to unwind and escape the ever-humming city below.
Nestled atop the Page 8 Hotel in the heart of London’s vibrant West End, Kitty Hawk invites you to an extraordinary escape from the city’s dynamic pace. Here, every detail is crafted to create an unforgettable experience, where the energy of London below meets the serenity of an elegant rooftop retreat.
Whether guests are indulging in an exquisite pre-theatre menu, embracing the weekend with a luxurious free-flowing brunch, discovering a new go-to spot for socialising, or simply unwinding with a signature cocktail expertly crafted by our mixologists, Kitty Hawk transforms each moment into a lasting memory…
There are few places in London to watch the glorious sunset with 360° degrees of the City…Searcys Helix restaurant at The Gherkin, pairs high-end design with contemporary cooking and Champagne, all while enjoying panoramic views from the top of one of London’s most iconic skyscrapers, offering seasonal set dinners and a sky-high afternoon tea that’s not to miss…
Listed as one of the 50 Most Beautiful Cafes by Chris Moss. Another Pym moment –
Kardomah, Swansea
Story by Chris Moss
Not the original Swansea Kardomah – Hitler put paid to that in 1941 – but it feels and looks like it. Opened in 1957, this wonderful, spacious, family-friendly café-restaurant still has original wood panelling, tiled floor and deco-ish reliefs, providing a nostalgia fix for its many senior clients. As further proof that caffs are about time-travel, Doctor Who used the Kardomah as a location and Russell T Davies has been spotted sipping here. The old Castle St “Kardomah Gang” included Dylan Thomas, Alfred Janes and Vernon Watkins; this one is frequented by the people they wrote about and painted.
Welcome, at the Kardomah Cafe we have a long history of excellent service, great food and wonderful coffee. We are an independent, established, family run business of nearly 50 years. Traditional values are important to us and have helped us create a warm and friendly atmosphere, which is seen by many of our customers as an important part of their lives, a place to meet their friends, whilst enjoying quality food and drink.
Australian Politics
On November 11, 1975 I watched history being made, from the best seats in the houseBy Michelle Grattan From The Conversation
“Those of us in the parliamentary press gallery knew we had front-row tickets for the biggest show in our federation’s history,” writes veteran journalist Michelle Grattan. (AAP: Lukas Coch)
In his just-released memoir, historian and former diplomat Lachlan Strahan recalls being picked up from his Melbourne primary school by a neighbour on November 11 1975, the day Gough Whitlam was sacked as prime minister. His politically active mother “was so upset she didn’t trust herself behind the wheel”.
Journalist Margo Kingston was a teenager and not political at the time. She remembers going to bed that night, pulling the covers over her head and listening on the radio. The next day, she organised a march around her Brisbane school.
The Dismissal is one of those “memory moments” for many Australians who were adults or even children when it happened. They can tell you what they were doing when they heard the news. It was an event that embedded itself in the mind, like news of US President John F. Kennedy’s assassination more than a decade earlier.
This was a life-changing day for many who worked in Canberra’s Parliament House. For Labor politicians and staffers, it bordered on bereavement. Excitement and elation fired up the other side of politics. Those of us in the parliamentary press gallery knew we had front-row tickets for the biggest show in our federation’s history.
50 years ago, a stalemate led to a unique event in Australian politics (Laura Tingle)
Pressure points were everywhere
The Dismissal didn’t come out of nowhere. It followed extraordinarily tense weeks of political manoeuvring, after the opposition, led by Malcolm Fraser, blocked the budget in the Senate in mid-October, and Whitlam refused to call an election.
Pressure points were everywhere. Would Whitlam give in? Would some Liberal senators crack? What would happen if there was no resolution before the government’s money ran out? Would Governor-General John Kerr intervene?
On the morning of Remembrance Day, Whitlam prepared to ask Kerr for an election. Not a general election, but an election for half the Senate — a course that would have little or no prospect of solving the crisis. But Whitlam had fatally misjudged the man he’d appointed governor-general. Kerr was already readying himself to dismiss the prime minister. He gave Whitlam his marching orders at Government House at 1 pm.
That afternoon Whitlam, eyes flashing, deployed his unforgettable rhetoric on the steps of parliament house. “Well may we say God Save the Queen, because nothing will save the governor-general”, he told the crowd, denouncing Fraser as “Kerr’s cur”.
Among all the differences between Australia’s conservative and progressive parties, conservative parties too often have purposefully or unwittingly provided shelter for racists.
One of the first laws passed by the new Australian parliament in 1901 was the Immigration Restriction Act, which implemented the White Australia Policy. It enjoyed the support of all the major political parties for decades, until Liberal prime minister Harold Holt began dismantling it in practice.
His good work was followed by that of John Gorton and Billy McMahon. In 1973, Labor prime Minister gough Whitlam removed it from the statute books.
Yet from time to time, Coalition parliamentarians have sought political advantage in reviving race-based politics.
Most recently, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price – who contested the deputy leadership of the Liberal Party only a couple of months ago – claimed the Albanese government had favoured Indian migrants because they tended to vote Labor.
Despite retracting these comments under pressure from within her own party, Price has refused to apologise for them.
To their great credit, Liberal leader Sussan Ley and Senator Dave Sharma repudiated Price’s comments. Indeed, there is no suggestion that Ley is racist. On the contrary, she seems a very decent person.
Whatever Price’s motivations in singling out Indian nationals in Australia’s immigration program, she has succeeded only in infuriating the Indian community.
Behind India, our next-largest source country for migrants is China. Again, leading Coalition parliamentarians have managed to insult Chinese Australians.
During the recent federal election campaign Liberal shadow minister Jane Hume remarked that there “might be Chinese spies handing out” how-to-vote cards for Labor minister Clare O’Neil.
A video of these remarks was reportedly viewed on WeChat up to 500,000 times in just 24 hours.
Many in the Chinese community appeared to draw the conclusion that the Liberal Party just didn’t trust them. Labor held all its seats with large Chinese Australian enrolments and won at least one (Menzies) from the Liberals.
The Hume and Price controversies might be considered isolated incidents. But they are not. At the 2025 election the Liberal Party did a preference deal with One Nation.
Back in 1988, John Howard had told radio talkback hosts that he considered the rate of Asian immigration too high.
At the time I was a staffer to Bob Hawke. Hawke’s anger with Howard was palpable. Howard repeated his comments over several days, hoping to gain a political advantage for himself and the Liberal Party.
Hawke considered Howard’s opening of a political battlefront based on race reprehensible. He drafted a resolution to be debated in Parliament reaffirming its commitment to a non-discriminatory immigration policy.
The resolution acknowledged that a Liberal government, under Holt’s leadership, had been the first Australian government to adopt the principle of non-discrimination based on race.
Hawke asked me to sit in the advisers’ box as he spoke. I listened to his passionate speech as he expressed his deep beliefs, engendered in him by his father, Clem, a Christian preacher.
Three Liberals crossed the floor to vote with Labor, including a backbencher, Philip Ruddock, who later became immigration minister in the Howard government.
Add to this episode the false claims during the 2001 election campaign that asylum seekers had thrown their children overboard.
Howard insists he was not told before polling day that the claims were incorrect. But Liberal ministers were told. It didn’t suit them to correct the record.
In 2018, then home affairs minister Peter Dutton, who years earlier had left the chamber ahead of the apology to the Stolen Generations, inserted himself into the Victorian state election campaign by claiming that Victorians were scared to go out to restaurants because of “African gang violence.”
Not just gang violence but African gang violence.
All these interventions and remarks can be viewed in the context of the recent anti-immigration marches.
Public discussion about the level of immigration is perfectly legitimate and, indeed, desirable. But rally organisers handing their microphones to neo-Nazis is not.
Yes, there has been a lift in migrant arrivals, peaking in 2023 but subsequently subsiding. This was a catch-up for the Covid-period border closures.
Looking at migrant arrivals in the four pre-Covid years to the end of June 2020, they averaged 531,000 – under a Coalition government.
In the subsequent four years for which data is available, they averaged 495,000 – a reduction on the pre-Covid years.
Australia doesn’t have an immigration program purely out of good heartedness. We need migrants to freshen up the age profile of our population so that we don’t have too few young people earning the incomes and paying the taxes to support older Australians in retirement. Successive intergenerational reports released by Coalition and Labor governments have told us that.
And we need younger migrants to fill skill shortages, such as nurses, physiotherapists and aged-care workers, as well as carpenters, electricians, plumbers, bricklayers and welders to build apartments and houses.
So, let’s discuss the size and skills composition of our immigration program but also try to make it an informed discussion. And may the discussion not be a ready-made platform for white supremacists and other assorted racists.
And let’s give credit where it is due. Among other Coalition leaders who have repudiated the use of race as a political weapon and have supported multiculturalism are Tim Fischer, Malcolm Turnbull and David Littleproud.
Craig Emerson is managing director of Emerson Economics. He was a minister in the previous Labor government and an adviser to prime minister Bob Hawke.
‘Definitely positives and negatives’: Industry considers details of local content quota legislation
The industry is dissecting the details of the government’s proposed local content obligations for streaming services, following the legislation’s introduction to Parliament last Thursday, expressing cautious optimism while acknowledging the limits of the proposed framework.
After a surprise Melbourne Cup Day announcement that the government would be moving ahead with a long-held promise from its Revive National Cultural Policy, Arts Minister Tony Burke tabled the Communications Legislation Amendment (Australian Content Requirement for Subscription Video On Demand (Streaming) Services) Bill 2025 two days later, setting up a potential vote during the final parliamentary sitting week at the end of this month.
The framework would require services with more than 1 million subscribers to commit 10 per cent of their total program expenditure for Australia on new Australian programming for their services. Alternatively, there is a voluntary option to calculate the obligation as 7.5 per cent of their Australian revenue.
To be eligible, a program must come under drama, children’s, documentary, arts, and educational genres, and be classified as an Australian program; a New Zealand program; an Australian/New Zealand program; or an Australian official co-production. The Act will make use of definitions set out in the Broadcasting Services (Australian Content and Children’s Television) Standards 2020.
In an echo of the previous government’s proposed Streaming Services Reporting and Investment Scheme, SVOD services would be required to submit annual reports to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which may administer civil penalties if requirements are not met. Services are allowed a three-year carry over period for the acquittal of program expenditure, while smaller services that have at least 250,000 subscribers must provide notifications to the ACMA. A statutory review is to be conducted four years after the requirements commence.
In introducing the legislation last Thursday, Burke said the legislation was “not a criticism of the streaming businesses in Australia”, but an “endorsement of Australian stories, a celebration of Australian creatives, and a show of respect for the Australian audience”.
“This bill will guarantee Australians will have access to Australian stories now and into the future,” he said.
“It will ensure that no matter which remote control you are holding, Australian stories will be at your fingertips. Australians will see themselves, know each other, and the world will meet us.”
Only one major SVOD service, Paramount+, has commented on the bill so far, while it was widely welcomed by the industry guilds when first announced last Tuesday.
RMIT Digital Communication lecturer Alexa Scarlata was among those to speak out following the legislation’s introduction to parliament, describing it as a “positive step” but noting that it did not set out a specific quantity of content that streamers will be required to make, or outline any local content promotion requirements – provisions that appear in similar legislation in territories like Canada.
Speaking to IF, Scarlata said the prominence question would need to be tackled “a couple of years down the line” with further clarity around eligible programs “priority number one”.
‘Once they start making things and we start doing research about how visible they are to Australians and whether or not they’re actually buried, that’s when we can deal with prominence,” she said.
“I think the key issue right now is the interpretation of eligible programs. It’s great that they’re focused on key genres, but how much do they have to actually make within those genres? Do they have to make one of everything? Do they have to, or can they just fulfill their obligation producing one documentary or one kid’s show?”
In its Explanatory Memoranda for the bill, the government outlines how a 10 per cent programming expenditure model might operate, using a simplified example of an SVOD with 1 million Australian subscribers generating $150 million in annual revenue, of which around $60 million (40 per cent) is typically spent on programming.
While noting this would vary from company to company, depending on the scale of operation, ownership structure, programming strategies, the memorandum estimates that applying this 10 per cent requirement across all major SVODs would result in a total annual spend of $175-$200 million on new Australian content. It argues this would be “consistent with the current expenditure for Australian adult drama, children’s and documentary programs by SVODs, which is an average of $193.4 million”.
Screen Producers Australia (SPA) has been at the forefront of the industry’s lobbying efforts, something that was acknowledged by Burke during his speech on Thursday.
CEO Matthew Deaner said there were “definitely positives and negatives in the bill for Australia’s screen businesses”.
“This is a very important step forward for our industry, one we’ve been advocating for over a decade, but on its own it’s not going to address the decline in commissioning of Australian screen stories that has resulted from the delayed legislation,” he said.
“On the positive side, the bill in large part delivers on the government’s commitment to audiences and industry in our National Cultural Policy, Revive. But like all complex reforms, the implementation will matter. SPA will be closely examining this and identifying areas for further action.”
“This legislation creates a framework where streaming platforms finally have quite specific obligations to contribute meaningfully to commissioning Australian content, but it’s only a small but important part of what is needed to rebuild a thriving screen sector.
“The data that will be generated from this regulation will be the start of a new phase of accountability where the real test will be how these rules work in practice and whether they genuinely bring more Australian stories to screen.”
In a statement to IF, she said she would “continue to advocate strongly to ensure Australian culture, creativity and national identity remain prominent on our screens”.
“I’m pleased the Albanese government has moved to ensure global streaming giants are legally required to invest in Australian stories,” she said.
“Details of the requirements to be imposed on streaming companies are yet to be worked out. I have sought a meeting with Arts Minister Tony Burke to ensure the final legislation delivers for the Australian screen industry and audiences. I look forward to discussing with the Minister the percentage of revenue and expenditure streamers would be required to invest locally, and how these calculations were reached.”
American Politics
An opinion on the re-opening I find plausible below:
Juliet Castille-Cooke “Before going ballistic about the reopening agreement please read this
Meg Rodham Wolfers: “It looks like a key group of Senate Democrats are closing a deal to end the shutdown in return for an agreement from Majority Leader Thune to hold a vote on extending the ACA expanded subsidies in December. At first glance, this may provoke a “Hunh? What are they thinking?” But whenever the House or Senate Democrats do anything that doesn’t look quite right to me, I dig deeper to figure out the reason for it. Because I don’t automatically assume that the Dems are weak or complicit or stupid. I figure there’s something deeper at play – and more often than not, I’m right. And it looks like they could be the case here Some folks are already melting down and accusing the Dems of caving because they say they get nothing out of a deal that includes “Everyone knows the vote will fail, so they get nothing!!! Dems caved again!” But wait – let’s do a deeper dive. You will see that that getting that agreement is a brilliant strategic move, even if the vote fails. Consider: 1. The ACA enhanced subsidies are set to automatically sunset in December if no Congressional action is taken to extend them. If there is no deal before then, they just go away on their own. 2. There was no way in hell the Republicans were going to agree to extend the subsidies, no matter how firmly the Democrats held their ground. 3. If the Democrats insisted on keeping the government closed in order to protect the subsidies, at the end of December, the subsidies would have gone away, the Dems would have gotten nothing, and people would have suffered an extended shutdown without getting anything in return. And this would have happened without the Republicans having to do anything and bearing no responsibility for the subdidies’ disappearance. 4. When the subsidies disappeared in December, people who are affected would have blamed the Democrats, not the Republicans. 5. By exacting an agreement from Thune for a vote to extend the subsidies, the Democrats are now forcing the Republicans to AFFIRMATIVELY end the subsidies rather than just letting them die a natural death. Every Republican will have to go on record, while every Democrat can be on record voting “YES.” 6. While it is possible that every Republican will vote no, it is possible that the Dems could peel off enough Republicans to vote to extend the subsidies. It would only take a couple and if they put the pressure on over the next few weeks, that could actually happen. 7. If the Democrats can get enough Republicans votes to save the subsidies, that will be a huge win. 8. If the Republicans stand firm and vote no, THEY will own the expiration of the subsidies, not the Democrats. The bottom line is that the subsidies were going to end in December, no matter what the Dems did. But now, if this deal goes through, if they do end, it will be because the Republicans voted not to extend them, not because they quietly went away. And if they can get enough Republicans on board – which is more possible than it was even just a week ago – they will save the subsidies The vote will ensure that either the subsidies are extended or the Republicans’ fingerprints are all over the expiration – neither of which could happen without holding a vote. So, I think we need to back off of the condemnation and attacks and shift our focus toward what we can do to help the Democrats get the Republican votes they need to extend the ACA enhanced subsidies. Of course, I could be completely wrong in my analysis. I don’t yet know what the underlying reasons are or the ramifications will be. But drawing the conclusion that the Democrats are operating with a smart strategy is far more logical than assuming they are clueless traitors. I have more than enough reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. I think we all should.”
Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American <heathercoxrichardson@substack.com> 14 Sept 2025, 16:34
President Donald J. Trump has been trying to remove Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook from the board of governors, alleging she lied on a mortgage application by claiming two homes as primary residences, which could garner a lower interest rate. Yesterday Chris Prentice and Marisa Taylor of Reuters reported that documents show that, in fact, Cook told the lender who provided a mortgage that a property in Georgia for which she was obtaining a loan would be a “vacation home.”
It appears the documents that director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte used to accuse her of mortgage fraud were standardized forms that her personal application specifying the house was a second home overrode. It also appears that Cook never applied for a primary residence tax exemption for the Georgia home and that she referred to the home on official documents as a “2nd home.”
In contrast, Reuters reported last week that unlike Cook, Pulte’s own father and stepmother claimed primary residence tax exemptions for two homes in different states. When that news broke, one of the towns in which they reside removed their primary residence exemption and charged them for back taxes.
Trump hoped to use the allegations against Cook to advance his control of the Federal Reserve. Now the revelation that those allegations appear to be false highlights the degree to which this administration is attempting to achieve control of the country by pushing a false narrative and getting what its officers want before reality catches up. Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) pioneered this technique in the 1950s when he would grab media attention with outrageous statements and outright lies that destroyed lives, then flit to the next target, leaving fact checkers panting in his wake. By the time they proved he was lying, the news cycle had leaped far ahead, and the corrections got nowhere near the attention the lies had.
While McCarthy eventually went down in disgrace, the right wing adopted his techniques of controlling politics by creating a narrative. Spin turned into a narrative that denigrated opponents as anti-American, and then into the attempt to construct a fictional world that they could make real so long as they could convince voters to believe in it. In 2004, a senior advisor to President George W. Bush told journalist Ron Suskind that people like him—Suskind—lived in “the reality-based community”: they believed people could find solutions based on their observations and careful study of discernable reality. But, the aide continued, such a worldview was obsolete.“That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” the aide said. “We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”But once you have untethered the political narrative from reality, you are at the mercy of anyone who can commandeer that narrative.
In the wake of the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in Utah on Wednesday, the radical right is working to distort the country’s understanding of what happened. Long before any information emerged about who the shooter was, the president and prominent right-wing figures claimed that “the Left,” or Democrats, or just “THEY,” had assassinated Kirk.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted an attack on his political opponents on social media: “There is an ideology that has steadily been growing in this country which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved. It is an ideology at war with family and nature. It is envious, malicious, and soulless. It is an ideology that looks upon the perfect family with bitter rage while embracing the serial criminal with tender warmth. Its adherents organize constantly to tear down and destroy every mark of grace and beauty while lifting up everything monstrous and foul. It is an ideology that leads, always, inevitably and willfully, to violence—violence against those [who] uphold order, who uphold faith, who uphold family, who uphold all that is noble and virtuous in this world. It is an ideology whose one unifying thread is the insatiable thirst for destruction.”But in fact, the alleged shooter was not someone on the left. The alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, is a young white man from a Republican, gun enthusiast family, who appears to have embraced the far right, disliking Kirk for being insufficiently radical.Rather than grappling with reality, right-wing figures are using Kirk’s murder to prop up their fictional world. Briefly, they claimed Robinson had been “radicalized” in college. Then, when it turned out he had spent only a single semester at a liberal arts college before going to trade school, MAGA pivoted to attack those who allegedly had celebrated Kirk’s death on social media.
This morning, Miller posted: “In recent days we have learned just how many Americans in positions of authority—child services, law clerks, hospital nurses, teachers, gov[ernmen]t workers, even [Department of Defense] employees—have been deeply and violently radicalized. The consequence of a vast, organized ecosystem of indoctrination.”
Today, billionaire Elon Musk, who just months ago was a key figure in the White House, reposted a spreadsheet of “people who’ve said vile things” about Kirk’s murder. Over the list, he wrote: “They are the ones poisoning the minds of our children.” “So far, teachers and professors are by far the most represented,” the author of the list wrote.
Across the country, educators have been suspended or fired for posting opinions on social media that commented on Kirk’s death in ways officials deemed inappropriate. Legal analyst Asha Rangappa noted that “Americans are being conditioned to be snitches on their fellow citizens who don’t toe a party line on what is ‘allowed’ to be expressed. And employers are going along. It’s the new secret police.”
The deliberate attempt to create a narrative centering around “us” and “them” and to mobilize violence against that other was on display today when Musk told a giant anti-immigrant rally in the United Kingdom: “You’re in a fundamental situation here…where whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die. You either fight back or you die. And that’s the truth.”
Of course, that is not the truth. It is a classic case of dividing the world into friends and enemies—a tactic suggested by Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt—and inciting violence against newly identified enemies by claiming it is imperative to preempt them from using violence against your friends. Miller has vowed to use the power of the government not against the far right, where the violence that killed Kirk appears to have originated, but against MAGA’s political enemies. Flipping victims and offenders, he called his political opponents “domestic terrorists” and warned: “[T]he power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and, if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.”
Where that kind of rhetoric takes a society showed on the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends Friday, when host Brian Kilmeade suggested the way to address homelessness was through “involuntary lethal injection. Or something. Just kill them.” When asked “why did we have to get to this point,” he answered: “we’re not voting for the right people.”
And that’s the heart of it. The radical right is frustrated because a majority continues to oppose them. According to Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers, Trump’s job approval rating is just 42.3% with 53.6% disapproving, and more people disapprove of all of his policies than approve of them. Unable to control the country through the machinery of democracy when it operates fairly and afraid voters will turn them out in 2026, Republicans are working to make the system even more rigged than it already is: just yesterday, Missouri lawmakers approved a mid-decade gerrymander to turn one of the state’s two Democratic seats into a Republican one.
Right now, Trump and his loyalists control all three branches of government, but Trump is not delivering what his supporters believe his fictional vision of his presidency promised. Trump telegraphed great strength and vowed he could end Russia’s war against Ukraine with a single phone call, for example. When he failed to get any buy-in at all from Russia’s president Vladimir Putin for his proposals, Trump threatened to impose strong new sanctions against Russia. This afternoon he backed away from that altogether, saying he would issue sanctions on Russia only after all NATO nations stopped buying oil from Russia and placed 50% to 100% tariffs on China. “This is not TRUMP’S WAR (it would never have started if I was President!), it is Biden’s and Zelenskyy’s WAR,” he posted.
This latest retreat from his threats against Russia after all his previous empty threats makes Trump’s claims of strength ring hollow. Russia is increasing its attacks on Ukraine, and today NATO member Romania scrambled jets when a Russian drone breached its airspace. Polish and NATO aircraft were deployed today to protect Polish airspace as well.
As Trump’s narrative falters on this and so many other fronts, MAGA is moving to the violence of the far right to achieve what he cannot. In that, they are fueled by the right-wing disinformation machine that is whitewashing Kirk’s racism, sexism, and attacks on those he disagreed with and instead portraying Kirk simply as a Christian motivational speaker attacked by a rabid left wing. Trump’s vow to award Kirk the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously reinforces that image.
The refusal of Republican lawmakers to challenge MAGA’s creation of its own reality has opened the way for believers to try to put that world into place through violence. Their victory would end the rule of law on which the United States was founded and base the government on the whims of an authoritarian cabal.
It would make the United States a country in which people who stand in the way of the regime—people like Lisa Cook—would be at the mercy of hostile officials who allege they are committing crimes in order to get rid of them.—
Cindy Lou has a casual meal at one of her favourite coffee cafes – Kopiku
Kopiku at O’Connor is an excellent place to enjoy a coffee. Mine is always made to order – with plenty of froth for Leah to enjoy, and enough coffee for me. On this occasion we took advantage of the late-night opening for dinner on a Thursday evening. We both ordered from the Indonesian menu, which is not all chili dominated, to my delight. The Nasi Goring was plentiful, flavoursome, and accompanied by prawn crackers which Leah liked. The prawns that I ordered a while ago, are extremely spicy, great for the chili lovers. However, I took them home and enjoyed them in very small portions.
Cindy Lou eats with friends at the China Tea Club
The service is excellent, the ambience pleasant, and the food delicious and plentiful. Dine in or take away, this Chinese restaurant provides the best Chinese food I have had for a long time. Mee Sing, formerly in Lyneham, having closed needed to be replaced, and The Chine Tea Club in Lyneham has done that – thank goodness. Particularly flavoursome is the Egg Plant and Chicken dish. The duck pancakes, prawn and ginger dumplings, prawn cutlets and white bait are delicious. Sizzling beef is served with the right ratio of beef to noodles, and the other meat and prawn dishes met everyone’s satisfaction depending on their dietary requirements.
Cambridge Literature Courses
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We offer live online courses (4 to 6 sessions) on particular writers and themes: on George Orwell, Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth von Arnim, Greek and Shakespearean drama, Katherine Mansfield, the Bloomsbury Group, Literary Gardens, mid-20thC Women Writers, and many others.
2025
Women Writers Season, January 2025 to January 2026, from Mary Shelley to Zora Neale Hurston..
Barbara Pym, a novelist sometimes described as the twentieth-century Jane Austen, was a stalker. Her diaries describe her methods of “finding out” her objects of interest in vivid detail: looking them up in directories, “tailing” them across town to discover their home addresses and workplaces and places of worship, staging “chance” encounters, and collecting their “relics.” She invented “sagas,” games of investigation and fantasy that could last several years. Most of her victims were men; they were, to varying degrees, unavailable. Several of them were gay.
Throughout the 1950s, Pym had portrayed the love and labor of “excellent women”—spinsters cooking dinner for curates, bored wives matchmaking, girlfriends helping academics cross-reference the index—with screwball pathos. Praising her second novel as “a perfect book,” the poet John Betjeman wrote, “Excellent Women is England, and, thank goodness, it is full of them.” All of Pym’s respectable women indulge in some form of obsessive love. Her most mild-mannered heroines snoop through curtains and hedges; at their most audacious, her spinsters whip out binoculars and sneak uninvited into other people’s homes. (The men barely notice.)
It wasn’t until The Sweet Dove Died (written between 1963 and 1969, and reissued this September by New York Review of Books), that Pym began to reckon seriously with the impact that unrelenting womanly “devotion” might have on the beloved one—and on the spinster herself. In A Sweet Dove Died, stalking a gay man is rendered not as the expression of unrequited love but as the determined assertion of one woman’s ego.
In swinging sixties London, an elegant middle-aged woman named Leonora swoons in an auction room and is picked up by an antiques dealer and his nephew. The uncle, Humphrey, is solicitous, but Leonora prefers the nephew, James, who is golden-haired, malleable, and of uncertain sexuality. A series of emotional bidding wars ensue. Humphrey takes Leonora to an exhibition of historic portraits; she invites James into her exquisite flat, feeds him pâté, and presents him with her Victorian flower book. “Pink convolvulus,” he reads. The flower signifies “Worth sustained by Tender and Judicious affection”—a principle for which none of the protagonists of The Sweet Dove Died show much regard. See Television,Film and Popular Culture: Comments for the complete article. See also Robin R. Joyce The Reality Behind Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women The Troublesome Woman Revealed and “Another Barbara: New Insights into Barbara Pym”.
John Bassett, Rachel Crothers Broadway Innovator, Feminist Pioneer, Bloomsbury Academic, August 2025.
Thank you, Net Galley and Bloomsbury Academic, for this uncorrected proof for review.
This book is not only about an intriguing and successful professional woman but written by someone who genuinely seems to admire her. John Bassett’s commitment to Rachel Crothers permeates the writing, making it a sheer joy to read. Bassett corrects some misconceptions but explains how they might have come about. His comic touch in reference to those about Crothers age, appears in an aside after his serious discussion of this anomaly and augers well for the way in which he approaches his material. His disappointment that Crothers’ work has almost disappeared, certainly from the stage, and from academic works and books for some time, does not impede his positive approach. He wastes little time on criticising; his reflections are illuminating, but he never diverts from his purpose. This is to redeem the oversight. His enthusiasm to ensure that Rachel Crothers and her work does become known makes this a thoroughly readable book. Bassett has written about Crothers in a work to savour as well as to inform.
The extensive detail provided about Crothers’ plays offers readers an experience akin to being part of her audience. Through this attention to the work, and Crothers’ reaction to reviews together with analysis of the critical reception of her work they exhibit, she emerges as a known figure. One that is a pleasure to know, written about by someone who also feels this way. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Thomas P. Slaughter The Sewards of New York A Biography of a Leading American Political Family Cornell University Press, October 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
Thomas P. Slaughter has written an incredibly dense informative book about the Seward family. To assist in finding the various family members who appear in typically detailed and insightful accounts, a list of the main characters and a family tree for both the Sewards and the Millers are provided at the front of the book. Some of the stories about family members are intriguing, particularly when they are juxtaposed with alternative perspectives from other family members, or Slaughter’s almost intuitive asides. One such story is that of Henry Seward, and we are left wondering whether his actions are a justifiable rebellion at his father’s harsh parenting, or whether he was as shameful a character as some of the material suggests. It is this level of intrigue and alternative explanation that kept me reading, even though for me, at times the narrative lagged. Despite this and the density of the material, and its dependence on family narrative, with the political narrative taking a second place, I found it tempting to keep returning to read more. For the reader keen to garner new information about this political family and the times, rather than the academic studying the period, this is possibly the best, if not only way, to approach the material. I found it worthwhile doing so. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
I was sent a kindle copy of this novel by Dervla McTiernan and BookFunnel. However, the only copy I can find for sale is this audible, reviewed on Good Reads. It seemed worthwhile posting my review here.
Dervla McTiernan, The Fireground, BookFunnel, 2025.
I found this novel a departure from Dervla McTiernan’s other work and took some time to appreciate it. However, I then read it in a night, as I became attached to the characters, and wanted to know how their lives developed from the damaging events with which the book begins. When I finished, I felt that I would like to know more about Flynn, Noah, and Kaiya – is there going to be a follow up, Dervla McTiernan?
Flynn and Kaiya are sisters, and must navigate their lives as school students, at risk from predatory relatives and juggling domestic, educational, and work priorities after their parents are killed in a car smash. Noah is an indifferent student, and his mother is a perpetual victim of his stepfather’s violence. Until this violence reaches a shocking conclusion, Noah’s father has been absent. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
American Politics
November 5, 2025
Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American <heathercoxrichardson@substack.com>
New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a member of both the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, began his victory speech last night with a nod to Eugene V. Debs, labor organizer and Socialist candidate for president at the turn of the last century.“
The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said: ‘I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.’”The 34-year-old mayor-elect’s speech went on to deliver something that was more than a victory speech. It marked a new era much like the one that had given rise to Debs himself. After more than forty years in which ordinary Americans had seen the political system being stacked against them and, over time, forgotten they had agency to change it, they had woken up.
Mamdani began by lifting up New York City’s working people, noting that “[f]or as long as we can remember,” they “have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands…. And yet,” he said, “over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater.”
“Tonight,” he said, “against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands.” New York, he said, had delivered “[a] mandate for change. A mandate for a new kind of politics. A mandate for a city we can afford. And a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that.”
Mamdani thanked “the next generation of New Yorkers who refuse to accept that the promise of a better future was a relic of the past.” And that was the heart of his message: that democracy belongs to ordinary people. “We will fight for you,” he said, “because we are you.”
He thanked “Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas. Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses. Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties.” He assured “every New Yorker in Kensington and Midwood and Hunts Point” that “this city is your city, and this democracy is yours too.”
Mamdani celebrated the hard work of democracy in his win. It was a victory not just for all those who make up New York City, he said, but also for “the more than 100,000 volunteers who built this campaign into an unstoppable force…. With every door knocked, every petition signature earned, and every hard-earned conversation, you eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics.”
With that base of Americans engaged in the work of democracy, Mamdani welcomed a new era. “There are many who thought this day would never come, who feared that we would be condemned only to a future of less, with every election consigning us simply to more of the same,” he said. “And there are others who see politics today as too cruel for the flame of hope to still burn.”
But in New York City last night, he said, “we have answered those fears…. Hope is alive. Hope is a decision that tens of thousands of New Yorkers made day after day, volunteer shift after volunteer shift, despite attack ad after attack ad. More than a million of us stood in our churches, in gymnasiums, in community centers, as we filled in the ledger of democracy.”
“And while we cast our ballots alone, we chose hope together. Hope over tyranny. Hope over big money and small ideas. Hope over despair. We won because New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible. And we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be something that is done to us. Now, it is something that we do.”
Mamdani promised a government that would answer to the demands of the people. It would address the city’s cost-of-living crisis, invest in education, improve infrastructure, and cut bureaucratic waste. It would, he said, work with police officers to reduce crime while also defending community safety and demanding excellence in government.
Mamdani pushed back not just against the smears thrown his way during the campaign, but also against the deliberate division of the country that has been a staple of Republican rhetoric since 1972, when President Richard Nixon’s vice president Spiro Agnew embraced his role as the key purveyor of “positive polarization.” In its place, he called for community and solidarity.
“In this new age we make for ourselves,” Mamdani said, “we will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against one another…. Here, we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many Black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall. Your struggle is ours, too.”
Mamdani, who is Muslim, promised to “build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism. Where the more than 1 million Muslims know that they belong—not just in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power.”
He called for a government of both competence and compassion. “For years,” he said, “those in City Hall have only helped those who can help them. But on January first, we will usher in a city government that helps everyone.”
Mamdani took on the problem of disinformation in modern politics, noting that “many have heard our message only through the prism of misinformation. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent to redefine reality and to convince our neighbors that this new age is something that should frighten them.” He laid that disinformation at the feet of the very wealthy in their quest to divide working Americans to make sure they retain power. “[A]s so often occurred,” he said, “the billionaire class has sought to convince those making $30 an hour that their enemies are those earning $20 an hour. They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long-broken system.”
Mamdani urged New Yorkers to embrace a “brave new course, rather than fleeing from it.” If they do, he said, “we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.”
Mamdani identified the popular momentum to defeat President Donald J. Trump, but made the point that the goal is not simply to stop Trump, but also to stop the next Trump who comes along. While Mamdani’s prescription focused on the avenues of resistance open to New York City government, he emphasized that for the president “to get to any of us,” he will have to “get through all of us.”
Mamdani called for New Yorkers to “leave mediocrity in our past,” and for Democrats to “dare to be great.” When Mamdani said, “New York, this power, it’s yours,” and told New Yorkers, “[t]his city belongs to you,” millions of Americans heard a reminder that they, too, are powerful and that the government of the United States of America belongs to them.Mamdani won election yesterday backed by just over half the city’s voters, in an election characterized by extraordinarily high turnout. Andy Newman of the New York Times noted yesterday that in the last four New York City mayoral elections, fewer than a third of registered voters turned out. Yesterday, more than 2 million voters voted, the highest turnout for a mayoral election since 1969.And that turnout is a key part of the story of yesterday’s Democratic wave. As Mamdani said, American voters appear, once again, to be aware of their agency in our democracy.—
My fellow Virginians. Tonight, we sent a message — we sent a message to every corner of the Commonwealth; a message to our neighbors and our fellow Americans across the country; we sent a message to the whole world — that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our Commonwealth over chaos.
You all chose leadership that will focus relentlessly on what matters most: lowering costs, keeping our communities safe, and strengthening our economy for every Virginian — leadership that will focus on problem solving, not stoking division.
You chose leadership that will always put Virginia first. And Virginia, I cannot wait to get to work for you.
Tonight, we turned a page. We turned that page by listening to our neighbors, focusing on practical results, laying out a clear agenda, and leading with decency and determination.
To everyone who helped us achieve this win — from the bottom of my heart — I thank you for the trust you have placed in me and it is the honor of my lifetime to be elected the 75th Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia!
I would like to thank my opponent for a hard fought race.
The Lieutenant Governor’s story, her military service, and her years of service to Virginia — deserve our respect.I ask you join me in wishing her and her family well.
I also know that her supporters are disappointed today — and to those Virginians who did not vote for me — I want you to know that my goal and intent is to serve all Virginians and that means I will listen to you. I will work for and with you. That is the approach I’ve taken throughout my whole career. I have worked with anyone and everyone — regardless of political party — to deliver results for the people that I serve.
That’s because I believe in this idea: that there is so much more that unites us as Virginians and as Americans than divides us. I know in my heart that we can unite for Virginia’s future and we can set an example for the rest of the nation.
Our founders understood this from the very beginning. They didn’t choose to call Virginia a “Commonwealth” by accident. They chose it to signify that our government would be based on the power of the people united for a common good. Not for a political party. Not for a President. Not for a monarch. But for a common good. Together.
And tonight, Virginia proved that tradition is alive and well. We are still a Commonwealth in every sense of the word. We are built on the things we share, not the things that pull us apart, and I’m proud that our campaign earned votes from Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and everyone in-between.
That’s the Virginia I know. That’s the Virginia I love. And that’s the Virginia I will have the honor of serving as your next Governor.
I want to thank so many people for the support they’ve given to our campaign. Thank you for your work.
Thank you to our tireless volunteers — to those who have believed in me — thank you for devoting your time your energy, your conviction to this campaign. Thank you for braving the heat, then the cold, then the rain, then the sun. Thank you.
Thank you for talking to your neighbors about the importance of this race. Thank you for recognizing that when we went person to person engaging, we could bring people not just into supporting our campaign, but engaging in our democracy.
We won this race because of you.
To our campaign team — you are the best team in the country. Every single one of you worked tirelessly for the change, the progress, the policies, the connection, and the respect that you want to see in our communities.
Thank you for working so hard. Thank you for giving people hope. Thank you for knocking doors in the sweltering heat. Thank you for showing kindness. Thank you for showing up in every corner of Virginia. Thank you for diving deep on policy. Thank you for capturing moments and the essence of our campaign. Thank you for reaching voters everywhere, and thank you for believing that Virginia could and would send a hopeful and joyful message.
Thank you for giving everything, everything to this campaign — and then some.
And thank you to my family [husband, daughters, sisters]… friends…
I’ve talked a lot throughout this campaign about the importance of service and how it’s shaped my life and my approach to public office. That all came from my parents.
But this commitment to service isn’t unique to my family — it’s engrained in so many Virginia families. It’s part of Virginia’s story.
Here, in Virginia, this is where American democracy was born, and where we’re still working to perfect it today.
Where James Madison built the framework for our Constitution to protect us from tyranny.
Where Washington and Jefferson fought to establish a government of, by, and for the people.
It’s also where Barbara Johns — a 16-year-old student from Farmville — led a walkout of students that would be part of the Brown v. Board of Education case to integrate public schools.
Barbara Johns never gave up and she showed us that no matter your age you can be part of the change and progress that you want to see here in Virginia and across the nation.
We were a nation founded on ideas — but we are a country where it is up to us — the citizens — who must put those ideas into action. It is us — the citizens who work to make change and progress — and built upon the foundation laid out over so many years. Now, Virginia, it is our time to lead…
It is a big deal that the girls and young women I have met along the campaign trail now know with certainty that they can achieve anything. It is a big deal to the woman older than I am — who forged the path in dreams, hard work, and belief that change and progress would be possible so many of us could follow in your footsteps — in any career, any role, any challenge.
The history Virginia is making tonight is yours — and I thank those who have come before me — and Mary Sue Terry in particular. She was the first woman elected statewide in Virginia, and because of her and the continued work of so many, there will be many more women to come for generations to come.
So, now that the campaign is over — the real work begins.
Because this was never just about winning an election. It was about what comes next. It is about the governing.
Virginia voters made their choice tonight. And that choice was loud and clear:
We’re going to lower the cost of renting, buying, or staying in your home. We are going to cut red tape and build homes families can actually afford.
We’re going to lower healthcare costs. We are going to crack down on predatory pharmaceutical practices and surprise billing.
We’re going produce more energy and we’re going to lower energy costs. We are going to produce more energy here in Virginia and make sure that data centers pay their fair share.
We’re going to grow Virginia’s economy by investing in the apprenticeships and job training of the future. We are going to leverage AI and cutting-edge manufacturing to bring more capital investment into our Commonwealth.
We’re going to take politics out of our schools. We are going to make sure that teachers are well paid and well respected,so that our students can focus on actually learning and so parents know that their child will succeed.
And we’re going to make our communities safer, by providing the training, pay, and support that our law enforcement community needs and deserves.
These aren’t slogans on a bumper sticker. They are actionable policies I’m ready to implement on day one. And starting now, that work begins.
So as we begin this transition to a new administration, I want to be absolutely clear about a couple of things:
First: Virginia is the only state in the South that hasn’t restricted women’s reproductive rights since the Dobbs decision. And under my watch, it will stay that way.
In Virginia, healthcare decisions about contraception, fertility treatments, and reproductive care will continue to be made between women and their doctors — not by politicians. That’s a promise I’ve made, and it’s a promise I intend to keep.
Second: I will always stand up for Virginia workers. Always.
Right now, our federal workforce is under attack. And the chaos coming out of Washington is killing Virginia jobs and creating economic uncertainty for tens of thousands of families, government employees, government contractors, small business owners who are impacted by the chaos coming out of Washington.
Virginia’s economy doesn’t work when Washington treats our workers, Virginia workers as expendable.
To those who have been impacted by the mass layoffs, please know that I will direct the full power of the Governor’s Office to support you.
And to those across the Potomac who are attacking our jobs and our economy: I will not stand by silently while you attack Virginia workers. I will fight every single day for every single Virginia job. The ones we have now and the ones we will have in the future. I will stand up to you — and to anyone who tries to harm our economy and the livelihoods of our Virginians.
As Governor, my job is to put Virginia first. Full stop.
And tonight, as the Governor-elect, I call on Congress — Republicans and Democrats — and our President to make real progress on bringing this shutdown to an end. The Virginians, the Americans who work tirelessly for their fellow citizens deserve nothing less.
I know we’re living in a time filled with chaos. We live in a time marked by uncertainty. And along the way, we do our best to try to explain it to our kids.
I know that the list of challenges we are facing is long. But I also know that the only way we’re going to solve these problems is by tackling them together.
Democrats, Republicans, Independents — all of us.
Because that embodies the message we sent tonight. That is what being a Commonwealth is all about: standing united for our future.
That is what Virginia is about!
Let’s show the world what we’re made of. Let’s get to work!
Thank you all very much.
Follow up to the recent USA elections from special correspondent Joanne Clark
Joanne’s information is valuable to people interested in American politics but are only able to source news highlights. Joanne says: “There were 465 (or thereabouts) elections across the country on Tuesday, and the Republicans won………..eleven percent! ” Further, School boards have been shedding their MAGA members in favor of Democrats, with Virginia’s change in 2024 making a positive change for schools there.
The Washington Post
Democrats swept elections far beyond the big races in referendum on Trump
From clerks to coroners, Democrats on Tuesday flipped city councils, school boards and county commissions.
In Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, voters elected a Democratic district attorney for the first time since the 1800s, part of a Democratic sweep of every county office, including controller and recorder of deeds.
In Georgia, Democrats ousted two Republicans on the Public Service Commission, the party’s first capture of a nonfederal statewide office in Georgia since 2006. In Connecticut, Democrats took control of 28 towns from the GOP. In New Jersey, Democrats won their biggest majority in the General Assembly since the Watergate era. See Further Commentary and Articles arising from Books* and continued longer articles as noted in the blog. for the detailed article.
Nancy Pelosi Retires As The Most Important Woman In US Political History
Nancy Pelosi was a role model for what a Speaker of the House should be. As she announces her retirement, let’s honor the most important woman in US political history.
It could be argued that Nancy Pelosi is the most important political figure in the United States over the last 40 years. Throughout presidential administrations, Pelosi has navigated key legislation and led critical fights for the American people in the House.
During the Clinton administration, she championed the Ryan White Care Act that expanded Medicaid to cover HIV/AIDS care and established the national care system for HIV and AIDS. Pelosi was vital to changing the way that HIV is cared for and the she changes she brought about through legislation saved lives.
During the Bush administration, she led the opposition to the Iraq War. The national oppostion to the Iraq War led to a blue wave in 2006 that led to Pelosi making history as the first woman Speaker of the House in 2007.
During her first stint as speaker, Pelosi got the response to the Great Recession through the House that included saving the US auto industry.
Pelosi’s greatest and most important achievement legislatively as speaker was the years-long effort to pass the Affordable Care Act. Americans often forget how intense of a battle it was to get the healthcare legislation through the House. It ended up costing Pelosi her first speakership, but she got legislation passed that would improve and forever change the US healthcare system.
Pelosi became the first person in more than six decades to return as speaker in 2019. Her second term as speaker was defined by passing the American Rescue Plan to respond to the COVID pandemic, and House passage of the most consequential infrastructure legislation in forty years.
Nancy Pelosi kept House Democrats unified and together. Younger House Democrats complained that she ruled the Democratic caucus with an iron fist and the opportunities were limited. but her influence can be seen all over the next generation of House Democrats, from Hakeem Jeffries to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Rep. Pelosi has remained an advisor to House Democrats even after stepping down from leadership. *
*The remainder of this article is available on the Politicususa substack – eventually I might manage to get this! However, the above is an indication of the valuable contribution Nancy Pelosi has made to USA political life, and the way in which Politicususa acknowledges this.
John Stoehr
John Stoehr is the editor and publisher of the Editorial Board. Find him @johnastoehr.
Voters are acting like they were scammed — they should know Trump wasn’t alone
November 7, 2025 8:39AM ET
It’s a good thing when the Democrats win. There are some who would have you believe the opposite is true. As the New York Times Pitchbot said: “Zohran Mamdani won. So why does it feel like he lost.” He didn’t lose. Neither did statewide Democratic candidates in Virginia, Georgia and New Jersey. Neither did Democrats in towns and cities across America. It was a blue wave that suggests more blue waves to come. Democrats won by unexpected margins and in unexpected places (eg, Bristol, Connecticut). That’s good. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Those who would have us doubt the goodness of electoral victory are typically invested in the idea that there are deep, perhaps irreconcilable, differences between Democratic factions. Though the Republicans got shellacked, they are not being asked to rethink their future. Axiosreported that it’s the Democrats who must settle a “civil war over the best way to move forward after its crushing losses in 2024.” Do they choose to moderate Democrats or “leftwing” Democrats? It sounds reasonable. It might even sound noble. It’s not. It’s phony.
Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York, and Abigail Spanberger, the governor-elect of Virginia, are very different Democrats who certainly disagree on policy. That is not a weakness. It’s the strength found in a multi-racial ideologically heterodox organizationlike the Democrats. Each candidate amassed winning coalitions according to the conditions of their constituencies. That’s all they were thinking about. That’s all any of the winners was thinking about. No one was thinking about whether they speak for the entire Democratic Party in its fight against Donald Trump. That Axios is pretending otherwise is why its reporting about “civil war” is actually concern-trolling.
I would guess, if left to their own devices, a moderate like Spanberger and a progressive like Mamdani could work things out if given sufficient motivation. I think the problem comes when Democratic leaders stop listening to each other and start privileging the perspectives of people who do not have the interests of their party, or those of the people they represent, foremost in their minds. By that, I mean a Washington press corps that has internalized the idea that the Republicans are the only legitimate leaders as well as the idea that the Democrats, even after they win, must seek the Republicans’ consent before using the power they have legitimately earned.
Some centrist Democrats confuse compromise with consent. This prevents them from using the power they have to solve problems that they have told voters they would solve. That, in turn, makes them look weak in comparison to Republicans, who never seek the consent of the Democrats, which in turn, triggers a crisis of faith. Donald Trump has created conditions in which fighters ranging from Mamdani to Spanberger are trusted while middle-of-the-road centrists who can’t decide whether to join the fight open themselves up to contempt from both sides.
Some centrists, and perhaps some progressives, believe they will benefit from a backlash. They will interpret last night’s results as what political scientists call “thermostatic politics” (think: pendulum swing). But the intensity of the blue wave suggests something else. Many voters seem to be reacting as if they were scammed. Every single county in Virginia shifted left, even the whitest, western-most ones. In New Jersey, the Democratic candidate wiped out gains Trump made with Black and Hispanic voters. G Elliott Morris said the best explanation is “that voters didn’t know what they were getting with Trump 2.0 last November, but now they do — and they don’t like it.” But they didn’t know because our media has been so thoroughly corrupted. It sold them vibes. What they got was fascism. Pollster Tom Bonier put it this way: “None of this is complicated. The GOP ran on affordability in 2024. They gave sanctimonious lectures on cable news on election night about how ‘the silent working class majority’ had spoken. Then they governed as reckless authoritarians, punishing the working class.” But it is complicated. If voters really are punishing the Republicans for breaking their promise, they would have wanted to know that Joe Biden presided over the world’s greatest recovery from the covid. Wages were up, debts were down, employment was rarely higher. They would have wanted to know the cost of food and energy was getting back to normal. (Perhaps they would have wanted to know more about Kamala Harris’ plan to prosecute price-gouging.) They would have wanted to know, but didn’t, because they could not hear over the din of Trump’s lies or the media’s obsession with a recession that never came (not to mention reporters making fetish of Joe Biden’s age). If voters are acting like they were scammed, they should know Trump wasn’t alone. The media scammed them, too. And the Democrats should never play nice with scammers. If what we are seeing were normal “thermostatic politics,” we could expect Trump to modulate. He won’t. He’s going to break more laws, steal more power, take more bribes and keep grinding the working class to dust. His party won’t back off, either, not when it can cheat. (“We have a very favorable election map on the Republican side,” Mike Johnson said today, “And it will be more favorable when all the redistricting stuff is done.”) Voters held Trump and the Republicans accountable last night but they are now pretending voters did no such thing. And as they have since Trump came on the scene, reporters are going to play along. That’s why it’s the Democrats, not the Republicans, who must rethink their future. Failure isn’t a problem for the GOP, but victory is for the Democrats.
Rebecca – Melbourne Theatre Company
Before the show we ate in the very attractive precinct around the theatre – an easy tram ride from the centre.
I, unlike the critics and everyone on Facebook, found the production disappointing. The new Mrs. de Winter was dressed in the dreary pale blue cardigan and frock one might expect. However, little sandals and socks? Too much naivety, in my view. Her passion for Maxim, at least in her imagination, was, to be fair, wonderfully at odds with this image. Pamela Rabe, as Mrs. Danvers was excellent. She downplayed her antagonism beautifully – such a splendidly subtle approach which contrasted with the almost comedy act of Rebecca’s cousin. The comedy was misplaced, and, with the choppiness of the first half of the play, added to my disappointment. Mrs. Danver’s and Mrs. de Winter’s interaction in the second half of the play saved it, and I could sincerely join the clapping at the end. The disappointing life led by the couple after Mrs. de Winter becomes complicit in Maxim’s crime was a sensitive start to the production, and I wish the values expressed there had been visible throughout the production.
The Conversation
Article republished here under Creative Commons License.
Why Jim Henson should be recognised as one of the foremost creators of fairytales on screen
Published: November 7, 2025 12.53am AEDT
In March 1955, an 18-year-old Jim Henson built a puppet from his mother’s old coat, a pair of blue jeans and some ping pong balls. The lizard-like creation first appeared on Afternoon, a television series on Washington D.C.’s WRC-TV, but became a regular on the five-minute Sam and Friends puppet sketch comedy show from May 1955. Over 70 years, the creature evolved into Kermit. The bright green frog now is a cultural icon.
To mark 70 years of The Jim Henson Company, the company has curated an auction of official memorabilia, including puppets, props, costumes and artwork. In a specially-recorded promotional video, Brian Henson, Jim’s son, provides a useful reminder that his father’s legacy is far greater than The Muppets.
Indeed, Henson made a significant contribution to the screen fairytale, a genre all too often dominated by Disney. To encourage fans and viewers to think beyond The Muppet Show and Disney, I offer a reappraisal of his career in my book The Fairy Tales of Jim Henson: Keeping the Best Place by the Fire.
By far the biggest section of the auction is made of items created for the productions and publicity from The Dark Crystal (1982) and the revival Netflix series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (2019). The original fantasy evolved from an idea Henson had to create a story around an anthropomorphised reptilian race, which eventually became the formidable Skeksis.
His collaboration with the British artist Brian Froud led to the evolution of the intricate world of The Dark Crystal. The film follows Jen (voiced by Stephen Garlick), a delicate, fey-like creature from the nearly-extinct Gelfling race. Jen embarks on a quest to save the planet Thra by healing the Dark Crystal. He must complete his mission before the “great conjunction”, an event that would give the evil Skeksis power over the fragile world forever.
This ambitious endeavour was not the first time that Henson had used a fairytale-inspired story or aesthetic. As early as 1958, following a trip to Europe, he began to develop a version of Hansel and Gretel. Although it remained unfinished, fairytales became an established strand in Henson’s work.
This included two unaired pilots called The Tales of the Tinkerdee (1962) and The Land of Tinkerdee (1964), as well as the three television specials that make up Tales from Muppetland (1969-72). The latter are playful, gentle parodies and a Muppetisation of the well-known stories Cinderella, The Frog Prince and The Bremen Town Musicians.
Fairytales even inspired two of Henson’s mid-1960s commercials for The Compax Corporation’s Pak-Nit and Pak-Nit RX – preshrunk fabrics used to make leisurewear. The ads were titled Shrinkel and Stretchel and Rumple Wrinkle Shrinkel Stretchelstiltzkin. Fairytale themes also appeared from time to time in segments of Sesame Street (1969-present) and The Muppet Show (1976–81).
Henson’s film Labyrinth (1986) is a beguiling blend of well-known coming of age fairy stories, most overtly Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). These references are combined with original and innovative puppetry and design, and, of course, David Bowie as the charismatic Goblin King.
One of Henson’s final projects was the imaginative and technically inventive television series Jim Henson’s The Storyteller (1987-89). Inspired by her folklore studies at Harvard University, Lisa Henson encouraged her father to develop a show based on the rich European folk tale tradition, importantly, one that avoided the best-known tales, in favour of more the more unusual and challenging.
Fairytales are an important – and often overlooked – part of Henson’s legacy, from the final productions made during his lifetime to The Jim Henson Company’s later output (for example, Jim Henson’s Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story in 2001 and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance). Fans are also consistently teased with rumours of a Labyrinth sequel or reboot. Most recently, Robert Eggers is reported to be directing.
Henson should be considered one of the foremost creators of screen fairytales of the 20th century. As his fans celebrate the 70th anniversary of his creations, it’s time for the world to rediscover his magical body of work, beyond the much-beloved Muppets.
This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
I find the Agatha Christie Newsletter a bit of fun – excerpts below
January Netflix Release | Christmas Shop | Activities
The Agatha Christie Newsletter <generalenquiries@agathachristie.com
The new series starring Mia McKenna-Bruce, Helena Bonham Carter and Martin Freeman debuts 15 January worldwide. Along with the release date, Netflix have also shared first look images and a thrilling new teaser. Read more
Explore our November Read Christie pick Cat Among the Pigeons blends murder mystery with international espionage, making it an ideal fit for our November spies theme. When a teacher is found dead in a prestigious school, suspicion spreads and Poirot is called on. Find out more
“What is three quarters of a million or some such sum in comparison with human life?” Agatha Christie, Cat Among the Pigeons
The After School Detectives Club is now out in the US, and to celebrate we’ve shared a few printable pages from the book. It’s the perfect autumn activity for children aged 8+. Is your child as perceptive as Poirot? Download the PDFTrial our courtroom-themed word search
Last week marked 72 years since Witness for the Prosecution first opened on the stage in London, and to celebrate we created a new word search! Can you find all the hidden words and phrases related to the play? Test your skills
The World of Agatha Christie Read about all things Christie in the tenth edition of our free magazine, packed full of puzzles, extracts and trivia for fans to enjoy. In this edition, we’re focusing on spies, lawyers and more in Christie’s stories. Download your PDF copy
Stories featuring spies“Bundle” Brent uncovers a secret society that could help solve a murder involving a missing clock. Read more
A wounded spy enters Victoria Jones’s hotel room in Baghdad and utters his final words… Read more
The young, bereaved Hilary is persuaded by a secret agent to undertake a risky mission. Read more
Victoria Scott The House on the Cliff Boldwood Books, October 2025.
Thank you, Boldwood Books and NetGalley for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
The House on the Cliff is the fourth of Victoria Scott’s novels that I have enjoyed. However, although there is much to admire, I felt a little disappointed. The pacing was slow at times; the writing would have benefitted from being sharper and more focussed. Also, although I was impressed with Scott’s exploration of the nature of perimenstrual impact on women and their relationships, this was a little overworked. The positive feature of the way in which Scott dealt with this issue was that the difficulties were validated, and their influence on the present-day main character’s relationships did not dismiss the real challenges she faced and had to reconcile with her marriage, her changing responsibilities and even the seemingly simple task of leaving a familiar environment for an new future. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Roxanne Gregory, A History of Women in Piracy Life under the Black Flag, Pen & Sword| Pen & Sword History, August 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley and Pen & Sword, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
There remains a role for writing women into history despite the numerous works that have undertaken this task so admirably. Roxanne Gregory has assembled short pieces about women who were pirates, restoring them as actors in what has been largely seen as men’s history. Female pirates have appeared in fiction, and they and their male counterparts have provided dynamic narratives in which their escapades are often romanticised. With such a background, Gregory has a difficult job in providing a true picture of the women she chooses to portray, while maintaining some of liveliness that readers have been led to expect from the fictional accounts of piracy. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Claire Allan People Don’t Just Disappear Boldwood Books, November 2025.
Thank you, Net Galley and Boldwood Books, for this uncorrected proof for review.
Initially, this appears to be a harrowing story of abduction and cruelty, with a somewhat weak premise. A prologue introduces a man reacting strongly to wailing and lamenting to which he feels unjustly subjected. After all, as he tells a child playing with his toys, none of this is his fault, the woman knows the rules and if she had obeyed, she would not have been punished – he is fair. Like those before her, it is she who lets him down, her punishment is her fault, not his. In chapter 1, a small boy appears at Bronagh’s front door, crying and enticing her to accompany him to where she finds a barely alive woman in an abandoned car. She appears to be the victim of an accident, until Bronagh is hit on the head, and much later awakes in a dirty, cold bedroom. Here she is variously tormented by her captor, the cries of the child who claims that she is his mother, and another woman who is fearful, but possibly part of the kidnapping. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Cindy Lou has several breakfasts,brunches, and some tapas at Degraves Espresso in Degraves Lane, Melbourne
Degraves Espresso was a terrific find. We stopped for tapas soon after our arrival – and returned for breakfasts and brunches. The tapas menu is excellent, and we chose our favorites from the experience of eating at La Tasca, a wonderful chain in London that unfortunately has closed – prawns and sour dough, patatas bravas, slow roasted leeks and albondigas (see previous post for photos). The staff at Degraves Espresso is friendly and the meals generous, delicious and interesting. The coffee is good. We shall be pleased to return on our next Melbourne trip.
Cindy Lou eats in a posher lane
This was not as positive experience as Degraves Espresso. Although the cafe was attractive and the coffee served in large cups was good, the salads were overpriced and ordinary. The prosciutto was supposed to be served with figs – a lovely combination- but they were replaced with strawberries (with no explanation or apology) – and although the salmon was pleasant enough the whole meal was not particularly stunning.
Cindy Lou eats at D.O.C. Lygon Street
The environment was terrific, and the food plentiful and flavoursome. However, the silky pasta that I experienced years ago at a meal in Bagni di Lucca seems to be unavailable in Australia even in restaurants with a splendid pasta reputation.
Bar Idda with family
Bar Idda is a Sicilian restaurant which was extremely successful the last time we visited. They were so accommodating, managing to fit eleven people reasonably comfortably around a table made for a smaller number. On this occasion we had the same table for a smaller number, and would have preferred something smaller so that we could talk and hear comfortably over the loud music. My recall was a meal that I could not resist trying again. I found some of the food excellent, and lamb eaters were very enthusiastic about the lamb. On Fridays and Saturdays only the chef’s menu is available, and there is little information before the dishes arrive. The attention to special meals, such as gluten free and vegetarian was amazing. So, a good night, with wonderful staff and pleasant enough food. Less noise and more information about the menu would have been an improvement.
I can see by the photos I must have enjoyed it more than I thought!! Empty plates everywhere.
National Gallery of Victoria
This gallery is always worth a visit. On this occasion I took only a few photos, and they do not do the gallery justice. I enjoyed the time looking instead as my phone needed charging. I chose the Christian Dior exhibition, and a display of chairs instead of the usual paintings I feature in this blog.
American Politics
Good results for Democrats in races for Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York. The referendum in California (see article below) which also took place was a win for Democrats.
This whole referendum in California is kind of complicated. Here’s what residents are voting on
Story by Arit John, CNN
One of the most consequential elections this year isn’t between a Democratic and Republican candidate, but over a ballot initiative in California.
Proposition 50 would allow California Democrats to replace the state’s congressional maps with ones the party hopes will help them to flip five GOP-held seats.
Democrats launched their redistricting push, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, after Texas Republicans redrew their maps to create five new seats that will favor the GOP at the behest of President Donald Trump.
Newsom has made himself the face of the effort, investing his own political capital into his party’s efforts to win back control of the US House next year.
But while Texas Republicans were able to pass new maps through the legislative process, California Democrats had to first seek voter approval. That’s because Californians amended their state Constitution in 2010 to give an independent redistricting commission the power to set congressional lines. Continue reading
Proposition 50 would give lawmakers the right to temporarily override that map through the 2030 election, after which the commission would draw the next decade’s maps.
Supporters of the measure have argued it will level the playing field ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to retake control of the US House, and serve as a check on the Trump administration. If passed, it would help Democrats neutralize much of the advantage Republicans have gained after redrawing congressional maps in Texas, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina.
“The essence of Prop 50 is to say that if you are going to play that game, then we are going to try to counteract that abuse of the system,” said former President Barack Obama, who has thrown his support behind getting the measure approved, during a virtual event with Newsom last month.
Critics, however, say Proposition 50 would undermine the nationwide effort to promote nonpartisan redistricting, and they have said Democrats may be reluctant to relinquish the power to draw the congressional map in the next decade and cede seats back to Republicans. Several Democrats have already announced their plans to challenge incumbent Republicans in the proposed new districts.
“There’s this war going on all over the United States. Who can out cheat the other one?” former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who served from 2003 to 2011, told CNN’s Jake Tapper in October. “Texas started it. They did something terribly wrong. And then all of a sudden California says, ‘Well, then we have to do something terribly wrong.’ And then now other states are jumping in.”
Newsom and other Democrats backing the measure have stressed that Proposition 50 reaffirms the state’s general support for independent redistricting, despite the current attempt to gerrymander the state.
British Politics
Labour Rosette
It is an honour to introduce this edition of The Labour Rosette in recognition of Black History Month. Last month, we paid tribute to the contribution of our Black community in this country, both in our past and in our future.
If one moment has come to symbolise that story, it is the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948. The Windrush generation, who came on that ship and others thereafter, left the Caribbean for Britain. Here, they helped a Labour Government build a New Jerusalem from the ashes of the Second World War. When we needed them, they were there for us.
Many years later, after decades contributing to this country, the last Conservative Government had the chance to stand by them. Instead, they abandoned them. People who had given so much to our country, over so many years, were treated as illegal immigrants in their own home. The Windrush scandal will forever be a stain on our history, and on the legacy of the last Conservative Government.
For those affected, the delays, the uncertainty, and the injustice have caused immense pain. Now, I am determined to put things right – and not just with words, but through action.
We have re-established a dedicated Windrush Unit in the Home Office to ensure support reaches those who need it most. We have also now launched a £1.5 million advocacy fund, to ensure the voices of those affected are always heard.
Crucially, we are paying compensation to those affected. In the last few weeks, I announced that Windrush victims can now receive most of their compensation upfront. Elderly and vulnerable claimants will be prioritised for rapid support. We are also extending the scheme to cover lost pension contributions, for those who had to withdraw their savings to fund their quest to prove their lawful immigration status.
The harm that was done to the Windrush generation can never be fully undone. But we can and must do everything in our power to right this historic wrong. That is what this Labour Government is doing. That is the difference a Labour government makes.
In contrast, Reform is now threatening to pursue the path of the Windrush scandal all over again. Their divisive plans to strip people of their settled status – which allows them to live in this country for good – is a gross betrayal of who we are in this country. It would tear families apart, separating children from their parents. It would do untold harm to our public services, not least the NHS. And it would cause untold damage to our communities. It is the action of those who seek a littler England, not a greater Britain.
Labour will always fight for those who have been left behind. We will always deliver justice where it has been denied.
In this edition of The Labour Rosette, you will read more about the work Labour is doing to fight for national renewal and build a Britain for all. I am proud to play my part in that effort as your Home Secretary.
Thank you,
Shabana Mahmood Secretary of State for the Home Department
Fairer future for renters with Labour’s Renters’ Rights Act
Labour’s historic Renters’ Rights Act has received Royal Assent meaning it is now law, securing a fairer future for 11 million private renters in England. In the coming weeks, Labour Ministers will outline how these reforms will be rolled out.
The landmark legislation will abolish Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and rebalance landlord-tenant relations across England as part of the Government’s Plan for Change.
What does this mean?
This Act abolishes Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions – a practice that has pushed thousands into homelessness.
Tenants will also be able to challenge unfair rent increases and ask to keep a pet – something landlords can’t say no to without a good reason.
The Renters’ Rights Act will also tackle discrimination head-on, banning landlords and agents from refusing tenants because they have children or receive benefits and bringing the Decent Homes Standard and Awaab’s Law into the private rented sector for the first time.
Why this matters:
The Renters’ Rights Act delivers on Labour’s manifesto commitment to level the playing field between landlords and tenants.
The Conservatives did nothing to protect England’s renters during their 14 years in office, and they voted against the Renters’ Rights Act in Parliament. Nigel Farage’s Reform Party also voted against Labour’s measures to protect renters. Only Labour is on the side of working people.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said:
“Every family deserves the dignity of a safe and secure home.
“For too long, millions of renters have lived at the mercy of rogue landlords or insecure contracts, with their futures hanging in the balance. We’re putting an end to that.
“A secure home isn’t just bricks and mortar – it’s the foundation for opportunity, safety, and a better life. No child should grow up without one.”
Australian politics
From Women and literature
7 Novels That Explore Motherhood’s Complexities – Donna Frietas
In the opening pages of The Paper Palace, the protagonist has a thought that made me want to throw the book across the room, not to mention scream bloody murder: “The best lesson my mother ever taught me: there are two things in life you never regret—a baby and a swim.”
It’s tossed out as though it’s a given for everyone—and I suppose to many people, it is. But for me? That single sentence pushed hard into the deepest button I’ve got. It prompted me to stop reading the book. I couldn’t bear it. Throwaway statements (and beliefs) like these assumed to be universally true for women are what steal a woman’s real feelings from her own mouth, and forbid her from speaking them out loud. (My emphasis).
I knew from the time I was very young that I didn’t want children. Yet once I reached my 30s everyone was pushing me to ignore my gut and have a baby anyway. The cacophony of voices arguing that if I didn’t overcome my resistance I’d eventually regret the decision for the rest of my life was relentless. Ruthless even. Yet not a single person worried about the other possible outcome: that if I ignored my gut and became a mother, I might regret having had the baby.
Beliefs like these and the way I was hounded are what compelled me to write The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano about a woman who doesn’t want children, whose marriage has come to rest on whether she’ll change her mind.
They’re also behind my forthcoming thriller, Her One Regret, about a woman (Lucy) who vanishes from a parking lot, leaving her baby behind in a shopping cart—everyone assumes she was taken. We soon learn that maybe Lucy wasn’t kidnapped after all—that maybe she planned her own disappearance because she regrets becoming a mother.
Her One Regret hinges on that question: Was Lucy taken or did she run?
I’ve come to think of Her One Regret as “The 10th Rose.”
In The Nine Lives readers see Rose’s life twist and turn depending on whether she has a child even though she doesn’t want one, or whether she stands her ground and doesn’t become a mother. But the version of Rose I was too afraid to write was the one based on my own greatest fear: the Rose where she has the baby and then regrets it.
To be frank, I thought if I wrote that Rose, the novel would not get published, because openly discussing motherhood regret is still so taboo. Yet after many emails from readers who wanted to know why I hadn’t given them a Rose who regrets—I finally decided to write that story. It emerged as a crime and suspense novel, Her One Regret, that turns on Lucy Mendoza’s disappearance.
Times have changed even in the last few years, and we are having many more complicated conversations about being a mother, and about choosing not to become a mother, and even (yes, at least a little) about regretting having children. But we still have a long way to go. Here are seven of my favorite books/series that offer portraits of very complicated motherhood.
Lona Bailey Wicked Witch of the West The Enduring Legacy of a Feminist Icon Bloomsbury Academic, October 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
Lona Bailey has produced a tremendously readable account of the feminist underpinnings of the wicked witch of the west, and more. This is not to suggest that the book is not an academic exercise; it has all the accoutrements of academic work – citations, an index, a bibliography, and of course is based on an immense amount of research. Where enthusiasm for a topic meets academic excellence and engaging writing, a reader is fortunate. I felt more than fortunate when reading Wicked Witch of the West The Enduring Legacy of a Feminist Icon. Bailey combines such academic excellence and engaging writing around a topic that has been an enduring interest. Popular culture, feminism, the Wicked Witch of the West in her various manifestations, from The Wizard of Oz to the musical, Wicked, further novels and television programs are gathered to produce an engrossing study. I read the book over a day and, happily woke during the night to continue to the end. This is a thoroughly enthralling read.
Bailey begins with Frank Baum’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in which the wicked witch is not the green visaged apparition of the film fame. This is a particularly illuminating chapter, with its reflections on why villains may be appealing, and the powerful aspects of the wicked witch of the west. Baum’s witch becomes the source of analysis of the feminist aspects of the witch, the appearance of the original, the actor who played her years later and the changes to her appearance that took place, as well as events on the set of The Wizard of Oz. The latter is very illuminating indeed. So, too is the discussion of Baum’s background and speculation on his intentions on developing this character. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Edward Biddulph, The James Bond Lover’s Guide to Britain, Pen & Sword | White Owl, October 2025.
Thank you, NetGalley and Pen & Sword, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
Guides to travelling around Britain with a purpose are always attractive and The James Bond Lover’s Guide to Britain is abundantly so. Following James Bond resonates with suggestions of spies, drama, duplicity, and death, and in his discussion of the films as well as the locations Edward Biddulph has imbued his guide with enough of the James Bond aura to tempt Bond enthusiasts. He makes the point that there are over 150 Bond related British sites, including principal locations as well as stand ins for overseas settings, in almost all Bond films and Ian Fleming’s novels. A surprising thought, and one which adds to the enticing nature of this guide. However, the guide could also appeal to those who are just keen to give their travels a focus and, as Biddulph tells it, Bond is a figure who can carry readers all over Britain. To travel with a purpose from Scotland to Cornwall is an intriguing prospect enhanced by Biddulph’s archaeological investigation of the sites, maps and archives that provide historical information about where Bond ventured in a rather different landscape from the modern one that readers will follow. Further, for the person who is not necessarily a huge Bond fan Biddulph shows that many of the Bond sites coincide with those that any tourist may want to visit – restaurants, historic houses, museums, and other attractions. He states that the book reflects his interests of history, archaeology, and cuisine – some universal interests there! See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Australian Politics
Launch of ‘Gough Whitlam: The Vista of the New’
Speech : Transcript:Check against delivery: Friday 24 October 2025 Sydney
The Hon Anthony Albanese MP
Prime Minister of Australia
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
It is a great honour to be with you all for the launch of an outstanding new addition to Australian political biography and indeed Australian history.
Among many distinguished guests, can I acknowledge all the members of the Whitlam family joining us here today.
Including Tony Whitlam, who I learned from this book was very nearly blessed with the name ‘Justinian Dovey Whitlam’ to achieve what Gough called a ‘crescendo effect’.
The tremendous interest surrounding this book speaks for Gough Whitlam’s powerful and enduring hold on the affections and imaginations of so many Australians.
Not just the true believers who have ‘maintained their enthusiasm’.
But all of us whose aspirations, communities and lives have been shaped by the Whitlam legacy.
All of us who have drawn inspiration from Gough’s essential optimism.
From his determination to liberate the talents and uplift the horizons of our citizens, through access to free education and universal healthcare.
From his reimagining of Australia’s place in the world.
From his assertion of equality for women: in our economy, our laws and our society.
From his leadership on land rights.
And from his defining belief that it is the mission of Labor Governments to reject the ‘habits and fears of the past’ and seize the opportunities of the future.
For any author to put forward a new account of the life of such a figure, is an act of real courage.
Especially when you consider that the first three people to write about the Whitlam Government in depth were Laurie Oakes, Graham Freudenberg and Gough Whitlam himself.
Think about that trio.
One of Australia’s best journalists.
Australia’s greatest political speechwriter.
And the Prime Minister at the epicentre of events.
It is a profound credit to Troy Bramston that his work not only belongs in such esteemed company – it actually adds to the picture those giants have painted.
Laurie Oakes gave us a portrait of a new-generation Australian politician, on the march to the Prime Ministership.
Graham Freudenberg wrote about Gough with the deep admiration and affection that characterised Ted Sorensen’s reflections on John F. Kennedy
And – in The Truth of the Matter – Gough was striving above all to set the record straight.
At the distance of 50 years, this book takes us beyond the consuming passions of those immediate political struggles.
And true to its title, offers us a ‘Vista of the New’.
Of course, the fresh insights in these pages are only possible because of the years of research that have been poured into this book.
Troy writes about the staff on Gough’s 1969 election campaign having to haul around a huge trunk filled with volumes of Hansard and a vast accumulation of newspaper clippings and index cards of policy proposals.
That’s also how I picture Troy’s process: part author, part archaeologist.
Sifting through a near-century of correspondence and archival material, as well as years of interviews he has undertaken with so many Labor legends, including, Gough himself.
If you want to know which registry office Gough’s grandmother was married in, or what his primary school maths report was like, or read extracts from the letters he wrote to Margaret during the war, all of that is in here.
But this book is more than the sum of its many parts, more than a mere catalogue or chronology.
In offering us a comprehensive account of Gough’s life before politics and a thoughtful examination of what drew him to parliament and the road he followed to the leadership, we gain a deeper understanding of the forces that shaped his character.
Growing up in Canberra, believing in the value and honour of public service.
His political awakening under Curtin and the 1944 referendum that inspired a lifetime obsession with reforming the Constitution.
His mastery of the House of Representatives, a reflection of his deep respect for that institution.
And that shyness some took as diffidence, which made him something of a solitary individual among the collective.
All this matters.
Because as the accounts of Cabinet and Caucus make clear, perhaps more than any other Government in Australian history, the Whitlam Government was made in its leader’s image.
It bore the imprint of its Prime Minister’s personality, in all its mercurial brilliance and all its crash-through-or-crash courage.
Paul Keating, who makes many insightful contributions to this book, once remarked that he gave more speeches about the Second World War than any Australian Prime Minister since John Curtin.
This was because his four years as PM, almost exactly tracked Curtin’s four years, half a century apart.
In reflecting on all those 50 year anniversaries, Keating said he felt:
“In the lee of Curtin’s trajectory”.
And that this enriched his understanding of the twists and turns of the Pacific war.
For my colleagues and me, our time in office has tracked the 50 year anniversary of the Whitlam Government.
On the 2nd of December 2022, I had the honour of being there in Cabramatta, as a Labor Prime Minister, for the opening of the newly-restored Whitlam family home.
The suburban backyard where people celebrated the ‘It’s Time’ victory, in the community that powered Gough’s passion for urban renewal.
When I travelled to China for the first time as Prime Minister in November 2023, that important step in the deliberate and patient stabilisation of our relationship also marked fifty years since Whitlam’s historic visit.
Penny Wong and I visited Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, the scene of that famous photo of Gough putting his ear to the curve of the Echo Wall.
That was our way of upholding the wisdom of that Chinese proverb: “when drinking water, do not forget those who dug the well.”
When we hosted the leaders of every member of ASEAN at a special summit in Melbourne in 2024, we commemorated a half-century of Australian partnership – an essential element of our engagement in the fastest growing region of the world in human history.
And last month in Port Moresby, we celebrated the golden jubilee of Papua New Guinean independence.
Just as Gough famously declared that independence for PNG ‘was an idea whose time had come’ I was proud to say to Prime Minister Marape that elevating our relationship with PNG to the status of an alliance was an idea whose time had come.
Each of those milestones – and so many more – inspire us and they remind us that Labor Governments are always at our best, when we build to last.
As I said in the House of Representatives, 11 years ago this week, when we came together as a Parliament to pay tribute to the life and service of Gough Whitlam:
“The legacy of our political contribution can be judged by its permanency.”
I do want to make this very personal point.
I love biographies but this is the first Prime Ministerial biography I have read while holding the title, it therefore became a very dynamic and intellectually challenging experience.
There is wisdom in here.
Do not ignore warning signs, engage and respect colleagues.
Understand the dialectical implications of decisions, and be orderly in your decision-making.
This book holds real, ‘contemporary relevance’ for anyone interested in politics or government or Australia’s place in the world.
And while The Vista of the New deals with the injustice of the Dismissal in a characteristically thorough way, importantly, it does not limit itself by looking at Gough Whitlam’s legacy purely through that prism.
It doesn’t diminish the performance of that Labor Government by dealing only with the drama and deception that brought about its downfall.
In the preface to this book, Troy recounts a moving moment in 2013 when Gough said to him:
“I want to be remembered as an achiever, not as a martyr”
This book honours that hope.
This is an account of profound achievements.
And its publication represents a significant achievement too.
It is my great pleasure to wish Gough Whitlam: The Vista of the New, all the very best.
PM&C acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of country throughout Australia and acknowledges their continuing connection to land, water and community. We pay our respects to the people, the cultures and the elders past, present and emerging.
How the star of lost silent film Jewelled Nights went from the limelight to selling sweets for cinemagoers
Louise Lovely starred in about 50 Hollywood films. (National Film and Sound Archive)
In short:
Tasmania’s early mining days were immortalised on screen in the 1925 film Jewelled Nights by Australia’s first Hollywood star, Louise Lovely, who hoped to take Tasmania to the world stage.
The silent film was a screen adaptation of a popular romance novel by Marie Bjelke-Petersen, the aunt of former Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
What’s next?
The silent film has inspired an art installation at this year’s The Unconformity festival, held at Queenstown. The artist is seeking a permanent home for the work.
It has been nearly 100 years to the day that Tasmania’s remote and rugged west coast played backdrop to an ambitious film project led by a Hollywood silent film starlet.
Considered a lost classic of Australian cinema, Jewelled Nights was mostly shot at Savage River, deep in the bush at an alluvial mine site.
At the time of its release, it was billed to be the making of Hobart as the “Hollywood of the south”, but its production ran overtime, the budget overblown and its star never went on to make another film.
As for Jewelled Nights, only remnants of the silent film remains.
Only a few minutes of the silent film Jewelled Nights remains, but the musical score survived.
The film’s restorer, Bernard Lloyd, previously said filming at that location would have been an extraordinary feat at the time.
“There was no road then, no track there and so to bring this film crew down there, two hours down the gully and then back out again each day, it was a huge ask with the weather, the snakes,”
Mr Lloyd said.
The film featured leading lady Louise Lovely, an Australian darling who had starred in about 50 Hollywood films, mostly by major production companies Universal, Goldwyn Picture Company and 20th Century Fox.
Film historians have said Lovely was the first Australian actress to find success in America.
Louise Lovely played a female character who dressed as a man in order to try her luck at mining in the 1925 film Jewelled Nights. (Supplied: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery)
Marie Bjelke-Petersen — a prolific romance writer considered the Danielle Steele of her time — asked Lovely to star in and produce the film adaptation of one of her books.
At the time, both Lovely and Bjelke-Petersen were celebrities in their respective fields.
In an interview, Lovely said: “Everyone said that good pictures could not be made in Australia. I have set out to prove that they can.”
Only a few minutes of the film Jewelled Nights have survived.
Following its premiere in Melbourne in October 1925, Jewelled Nights reportedly screened to 350,000 people, more than a third of the city’s population at the time.
Its box office success propelled Tasmania and its dramatic landscape onto the big screen.
But now, only fragments of the silent film remain.
Film’s intrigue inspires artwork
The film’s allure has led local Tasmanian artist Jacqueline Dortmans on a deep dive.
Her installation at this year’s The Unconformity festival in Queenstown on Tasmania’s west coast was a homage to the film and Bjelke-Petersen.
“The biggest mystery for me is the film, having been lost, there’s no way to know how Louise Lovely [and her co-producer] told the story,”
Dortmans said.
“We can draw on the book, which tells the story clearly, but what’s unclear is how they told the story in silent film.
“Silent film is not that well understood as a format.
“When you look at other silent films you recognise that they have this way of delivering a punch line just through a couple of words on a screen.”
Jacqueline Dortmans says silent film is not a well understood format. (The Unconformity)
Dortmans said she leant heavily into that formula to convey her Jewelled Nights piece, a three-part journey into the book’s setting, the script and its creators.
“It celebrates not just the achievements of Louise Lovely with the film, and the history that the film and book is grounded in, which is the osmiridium mining, but Marie Bjelke-Petersen as a person who is someone who should be more known in the Tasmanian context,” she said.
“She was very forensic in her research.
“She spent time at Savage River and 19 Mile Creek talking to miners and gathering the information to allow her to write with quite impressive accuracy.”
Romance author Marie Bjelke-Petersen was a celebrity in her time. (Athol H Shmith)
Tasmanian mineral needed for fountain pens
The Jewelled Nights story begins with the fountain pen.
At the turn of last century, Tasmania was the world’s only mined source of osmiridium, a mineral needed for the production of fountain pen nibs.
For years, gold prospectors on the Savage River system thought of the alloy as a nuisance as they panned for the more precious mineral. But, later, as osmiridium’s value was realised, it fetched prices higher than gold.
The Burnt Spur mining site at Savage River has been given heritage listing. (Heritage Tasmania/JH Robinson)
Miners quickly switched their alluvial techniques of gold panning to the search for osmiridium.
They worked streams by diverting water onto dry beds through stone wall channels and dams, many of which survive today.
Rough huts were also set up to house the temporary workforce, including prospector Jos Hancock’s, at Flea Flat, which featured prominently in the film.
These early mining sites, Burnt Spur and Flea Flat, have recently secured permanent heritage listing with the Tasmanian Heritage Council.
Jos Hancock’s hut at Flea Flat featured in Jewelled Nights. (Heritage Tasmania/JH Robinson)
In its submission for heritage recognition, the mines were described as presenting “intact archaeological examples of alluvial mining features” and having a “special association with pioneering Australian actor and entrepreneur Louise Lovely”.
Speaking on ABC Radio Hobart, historian Nic Haygarth said of the location:
“Marie Bjelke-Petersen had this idea that Tasmania should be a second Hollywood as it had the wonderful scenery.
“She was a great advocate for Tasmania’s rainforests and the scenery of the west coast.”
Tasmania’s wildness critical to film
At its heart, Jewelled Nights was a love story.
One where Tasmania’s brooding landscape and expansive skies played a role in maintaining the romantic tension between the cross-dressing lead female and the miner she falls in love with.At home with Louise Lovely
Listen to Chris Wisbey as he explores the house and garden of the former silent film star.
The lead character, Melbourne socialite Elaine Fleetwood, flees to the osmiridium mines of distant Tasmania after leaving her groom at the altar.
There, she dresses as a man in order to work the mines as she has heard there were riches to be made.
But as film restorer Bernard Lloyd said:
“On the mining fields, she finds something much more valuable — true love.”
When it opened, the film was well received by audiences.
But Lovely’s dream of putting Tasmania in the world film scene was crushed after the movie ran dramatically over budget.
“They had a budget of 8,000 pounds, and they only got 5,000 pounds back,” Mr Haygarth said.
Today, that would be a return of $500,000 from a $800,000 investment.
“That pretty much scuppered the deal. There were plans to make two more films, but it was pretty much the end of this idea of making Tasmania a second Hollywood.”
It proved to be Lovely’s final role.
She lived the last 32 years of her life in Tasmania, and some may remember her as the the lady who ran, with her husband, the lolly shop beside the Prince of Wales Theatre on Macquarie Street in Hobart.
Louise Lovely lived the last 32 years of her life in Tasmania. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
Dortmans said following The Unconformity festival she would search for a permanent home for the artefacts she has amassed for the artwork.
What remains of the film screens regularly at Queenstown’s Gaiety Theatre.
“I dived deeply into silent film,” Dortmans said.
“There’s a confronting statistic that 90 per cent of all silent films are lost. Jewelled Nights is just one of many films that have been lost.”
American Politics
Why Trump Turned to the Sewer
The president’s disturbing, excremental propaganda campaign
Lieutenant Colonel Harald Jäger was in charge of a Berlin Wall checkpoint on the evening of November 9, 1989, when a garbled televised press conference convinced thousands of East Berliners that they were allowed to cross into West Germany. People ran to the checkpoint. They started shouting at Jäger, telling him to open the barrier, even though no one had told him about any changes.
Still, “when I saw the masses of East German citizens there, I knew they were in the right,” he told an interviewer, many years later. In another interview, he recalled, “At the moment it became so clear to me … the stupidity, the lack of humanity. I finally said to myself: ‘Kiss my arse. Now I will do what I think is right.’” He opened the barrier and people started walking through.
Had these events taken place a few months earlier, Jäger might have kept the barrier shut. But the “masses of East German citizens” who had spent that autumn marching against dictatorship in East Berlin, Leipzig, and other East German cities had shaped his understanding of events. Watching them, he understood that most of his countrymen opposed the regime and hated the Wall. If everyone was against it, he no longer wanted to defend it.
The differences between the “No Kings” demonstrations that took place across the United States on Saturday and the East German protests 36 years ago are too numerous to list. I saw no riot police at the protest I watched in Washington, D.C. Nor did the demonstrations in the autumn of 1989 feature animal costumes, cute homemade signs, or people dancing the Macarena. But they shared at least one goal: to remind the government’s supporters and enablers that the public is unhappy. The majority of Americans object to President Donald Trump’s politicization of justice, his militarization of ICE, and his usurpation of congressional power. Eventually some of those presidential supporters and enablers might, like Jäger the border guard, be persuaded to side with the majority and help bring this assault on the rule of law to an end.
The people in the White House know this too, and they reacted accordingly. Trump, the successor to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, posted an AI-created video of himself as a fighter pilot, wearing a crown, flying over an American city, and dumping shit onto American protesters. The point was not subtle: Trump wanted to mock and smear millions of Americans, literally depicting them covered in excrement, precisely so that none of his own supporters would want to join them.
Cindy Lou eats with friends at The Constitution, the cafe at the National Archives of Australia
This is an easy place to enjoy a meal, with its varied menu, good coffees and a range of pastries. There is a need for more staff training as the service was friendly rather than efficient. However, the whole experience was pleasant, from the easy parking, scenery, and generous delicious meals. Although we were unable to visit the exhibitions on this occasion, The Constitution is a cafe to which I shall return, with plenty of time to see the other features offered at the Archives.
A Spanish meal in Melbourne for Cindy Lou
Degrave’s is in one of Melbourne’s lanes, near Flinders Street Station. It has a lovely atmosphere and great staff. The food was generous and flavoursome, but not to the level of the wonderful experiences we had at La Tasca in London. And Spanish food in Spain is another story, particularly when travelling with English friends for whom Spain was almost a second home. Nevertheless, I would eat there again for the atmosphere and the delicious leeks in particular.
A Statue Of Bridget Jones Is Being Unveiled In Leicester Square Soon – As The Iconic Character Becomes The Latest Addition To London’s Free-To-Visit Sculpture Trail
One of the most captivatingly chaotic characters in movie history is being immortalised in the form of a shiny new statue in the heart of London.
It’s been almost a quarter of a century since Bridget Jones first graced our cinema screens, woefully wailing ‘All By Myself‘ in her living room. And now, four films (and countless questionable decisions) later, our beloved Bridget is being immortalised in the form of a shiny new statue that’s mere moments away from being unveiled.
The statue in question has been designed by London-based studio, 3D Eye, and will feature the popular protagonist (portrayed by Oscar-winning actress, Renée Zellweger) in all her perfectly imperfect glory.
The sculpture will be permanently perched in the heart of Leicester Square, and is being revealed on November 17 at an unveiling ceremony. Renée Zellweger is set to be in attendance along with some of her Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy co-stars, Sally Phillips, Chiwetal Ejiofor, and Leo Woodall.
Credit: Scenes in the Square / Studio 3D
A teaser image has been revealed. And whilst we don’t know the age at which the character is set to be depicted, we do know that the statue will be wearing a necklace with a ‘D’ pendant, and clutching Bridget’s signature diary and pen.
Scenes in the Square
The showstopping statue is landing in London, courtesy of Leicester Square’s on-going sculpture trail, ‘Scenes in the Square’. Bridget Jones will be the first rom-com character to have earnt themselves a sought-after spot on the trail’s star-studded line-up. The free-to-visit trail is filled to the brim of cinematic icons. Bridget Jones will join the likes of Paddington Bear, Mary Poppins, Harry Potter, Batman, Gene Kelly, and Indiana Jones.
Helen Fielding, author of the Bridget Jones books, comments: “For Bridget to be honoured as a British Icon with her own statue alongside Paddington Bear, Mary Poppins and Admiral Lord Nelson (alright, he’s down the road a bit!) is a huge thrill and reason for everyone to raise a glass of Chardonnay to being ‘just as you are.’ I am touched and delighted for Bridget and Renée and hope that Bridget’s Mummy Pants will ensure a sleek silhouette for this exciting statue unveiling.”
Michael Morris, director of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, says: “Bridget has always belonged to London – her mess, her magic, her heart. To see her immortalised here, in the middle of the city she’s stumbled through and loved so fiercely, feels like the perfect love letter to her and to everyone who’s ever cheered her on.”
But this isn’t just a nostalgic trip; the revival promises to tackle the complex challenges of 2025 with the same intellect and heart that made the original a global phenomenon. 
Fans are buzzing: which iconic cast members are returning to the halls of the White House? 
Can the “Bartlet spirit” survive in today’s digital age? As the nation watches, this series is set to prove that leadership and integrity never go out of style!
: Getty
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