Michael Rainsborough: The End of the World Order as We Know It – Nice of You to Notice

For the past week the global commentariat has been behaving like someone who suddenly realises, halfway through his morning espresso, that his house burned down sometime last Tuesday and everyone else has been politely stepping around the ashes ever since.

Donald Trump announces, quite openly, that the United States wants to take Greenland, one way or another. Washington sharpens the tariff knife. NATO’s obituary is proclaimed yet again. The United States, we are solemnly informed, can no longer be trusted as an ally and that it is even a predatory state. The West is finished.

Cue panic. Cue Davos. Cue the anguished cries of people who have not had to think seriously about power since the mid-1980s.

Michael Rainsborough: Britain’s Descent Towards Civil War is No Accident

Having lived in Australia for the past three years, I sense that this country is the least advanced down the road towards the multicultural dystopia confronting much of Europe. That is not to say there is room for complacency: Australia has its own canaries in the coal mine, echoing trends observable across the Western world. Yet relative prosperity, firm immigration policies, a distinct welfare regime (mandatory health insurance, means tested pensions), a robust federal system, and above all a unique electoral framework of three-year cycles and compulsory voting all help, willy-nilly, to keep politicians on a short leash and broadly tethered to the popular will.