If the US is now our enemy, how do we defend ourselves?
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 27th February 2025
All the talk now is of how we might defend ourselves without the US. But almost everyone with a voice in public life appears to be avoiding a much bigger and more troubling question: how we might defend ourselves against the US.
By defending the UK’s draconian anti-protest laws, Labour is laying the ground for an authoritarian government.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 22nd February 2025
If the Trump project implodes, it might take with it the far-right European parties to which it is umbilically connected. Like all such parties, Reform UK poses as patriotic while grovelling to foreign interests, and this could be its undoing.
Trump’s assaults on governance could trigger systemic collapse. Here’s how it might happen, and how we can prepare.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 18th February 2025
This is how Labour’s war on regulations will stymie its own policies. It is irrational and self-destructive.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 11th February 2025
This might sound astonishing, but the UK government’s core programme now appears to be the same as Donald Trump’s: dismantling the administrative state. There’s less theatre, but the results could prove harder to contest. Absurd? Consider the evidence.
What could $27 billion fund if Commonwealth-state transfers were adjusted to bring revenue and expenses for each level of government closer to balance?
Over the past century and a half, politics and economics have evolved significantly in how we manage society. Yet, the core principle remains: every person born on this earth has a right to a share of its bounty.
The relationship between older, younger, and future Australians and our tax and spending priorities is based on an implicit generational bargain. Working age taxpayers support older and younger Australians and can expect the next generation to support them in the same way, and economic and social development will enable each successive generation to enjoy rising living standards. At the very least, we should not leave the next generation worse off.
The UK government’s pursuit of growth at all costs hands this country to predatory capital.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 30th January 2025
I can scarcely believe I’m writing this, but it’s hard to dodge the conclusion. After 14 years of environmental vandalism, it might have seemed impossible for Labour to offer anything but improvement. But on green issues, this government is worse than the Tories.
Labour’s housing strategy makes a dysfunctional system bigger. We need systemic change.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 26th January 2025
Build baby, build. That’s about the intellectual limit of the government’s housing strategy. Millions are under-housed, so let’s “bulldoze” the planning system and build more homes. But it’s not nearly so simple.
Trump’s presidency is a reversion to autocratic tyranny. Only concerted resistance can stop it from spreading.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 19th January 2025
What if we held an Australian broadband crisis and nobody came? That’s pretty much what happened in Australian broadband policy over the decade to 2025. Governments, forecasters and the media can all learn lessons from this episode.
It is that time of year again: Time to look back at information technology in 2024 and make light of it. As with prior year-in-reviews, this one will be arranged like an award ceremony. There are three criteria for the dozen awards given out this year:• The award must be for something involving digital technology.• The key event must have taken place this year, 2024.• The award cannot take itself seriously. The event receiving attention must lend itself to sass, sarcasm, and ridicule. As a reminder, the awards are worth nothing.
Plan International Australia Media Release December 26 marks 20 years since the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which claimed the lives of 230,000 people and [...]