Month: April 2013
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War camp mass has Aussie premiere
This Sunday, April 28, 2013, an Easter Mass that was first sung by Allied detainees in a Japanese internment camp in Manila 70 years ago will be performed in the sugar town of Murwillumbah, far northern NSW. Sunday’s choral concert by the Chillingham Voices will be historic because it is only the second occasion the…
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Tony Abbott aka the new Dr No
Prime Minister Julia Gillard scored a significant diplomatic success in China. She reached agreement with Beijing to hold annual ministerial talks, a status only enjoyed by a very small group of nations. The question is: when will Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and his shadow foreign minister Julie Bishop denounce the Beijing-Canberra “axis of evil” and…
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What was Thatcher’s greatest crime?
An epitaph for Margaret Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter from Grantham? “Reactionary, vindictive, mean-spirited, philistine, cruel, quintessential little Englander.” High points of her cold brutality included the war over the Malvinas (Falklands), crushing the miners’ strike and the Fleet Street print workers (for her ally Rupert Murdoch) and planting US cruise missiles in England after brutally…
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Thatcher and the class divide
Spare me all the guff about Margaret Thatcher. British Labour leader Ed Miliband says that “we can disagree and also greatly respect her achievements”. Here in Australia Labor leaders, including Julia Gillard and Penny Wong, follow suit. I don’t respect her. We didn’t have “disagreements”. We were on opposite sides of the biggest battle between…
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Scottish writer’s stand on Palestine
There’s sad news about Iain Banks, the Scottish novelist. He has cancer, and only months to live. His brilliantly imaginative novels include The Wasp Factory and The Crow Road, and he can also write in a lighter vein. I liked his satirical post-9/11 thriller Dead Air. There must have been something in the air in…
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Event for Sydney readers: Alex Mitchell with Hall Greenland
Tuesday April 16, 6pm, Better Read Than Dead Bookshop, 265 King Street, Newtown (upstairs room). Alex and Hall Greenland (pictured), author of Red Hot and Greens candidate for Grayndler, will discuss the current ICAC inquiry, the future of the NSW Labor Party and the upcoming federal election.