james macpherson @jamesmacpherson

The ABC don't want the Right to fight the Culture Wars - because they'll WIN. That's it. That's the reason.

Zealots Don’t Change: A USA-Iran Peace Deal? by James Macpherson [Commentary] Zealots don’t stop being zealots just because they sign a piece of paper. That’s the first thing worth remembering as Donald Trump celebrates what he’s calling a peace deal with Iran. Peace deal. Those two words are doing a lot of heavy lifting. Because when you look beyond the triumphant announcement — on Trump’s 80th birthday no less — what we actually have is something far less impressive. At best, this is an agreement to pause hostilities while everybody gets what they want. Trump needs oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz because the global economy runs on energy, and voters have an annoying habit of noticing when petrol prices spike. Iran needs access to frozen assets and sanctions relief because revolutionary slogans don’t pay government salaries. Or fund terror proxies. So both sides have found common ground. Trump gets stability. Iran gets cash. The rest of us get told it’s peace. Except it isn’t… The most important detail in the entire arrangement is the one hidden beneath the headlines: the real negotiations haven’t happened yet. They’re scheduled to occur over the next 60 days. Think about that for a moment. The grand achievement being celebrated today is essentially an agreement to have meetings. It’s the diplomatic equivalent of announcing your engagement before you’ve actually asked the girl whether she’d like to get married. The difficult questions remain exactly where they were yesterday. Iran’s nuclear ambitions remain unresolved. They’ve agreed not to pursue nuclear weapons. Do we trust them? They’ve not yet agreed to hand over the 500kg of enriched uranium they still possess. Trump says the “dust” is harmless. Okay. Details of sanctions relief remain unresolved. Verification mechanisms remain unresolved. Even the final terms remain unresolved. The deal itself explicitly creates a period of negotiations to settle those issues. And that raises an obvious question. Do we really believe the Iranian regime is suddenly going to negotiate in good faith around a boardroom table? This is the same regime that has spent decades funding proxies across the Middle East, chanting “Death to America” and treating international agreements less as binding commitments and more as temporary inconveniences. The ayatollahs didn’t wake up one morning, look in the mirror and decide they’d rather be Switzerland. Their objectives haven’t changed. Their ideology hasn’t changed. Their view of the West certainly hasn’t changed. The only thing that’s changed is the balance of incentives. That’s why calling this peace feels premature. A ceasefire, perhaps. A pause, certainly. A tactical timeout while everyone regroups and reassesses. Absolutely. But peace requires a genuine change in intentions. This looks more like a change in circumstances. And then, there’s Israel. And this is where the deal becomes particularly awkward. Reports indicate the agreement seeks to halt military operations across the region, including Lebanon, placing significant constraints on Israel’s ability to continue striking Hezbollah targets. So while Trump celebrates a diplomatic breakthrough and Iran anticipates access to billions in frozen funds, Israel is effectively being told to sit on its hands and trust the process. Good luck with that. Trusting Hezbollah not to rearm during a ceasefire is a bit like trusting termites to respect heritage-listed timber. It’s not impossible. It’s just not a strategy most rational people would bet their house on. There’s another problem with this deal. Deals are usually faster than victories. That’s why politicians love them. A deal allows everyone to declare success and go home for dinner. A victory requires patience, sacrifice and the willingness to keep applying pressure until the other side has no option but surrender. Trump has chosen the quicker path. The Strait of Hormuz reopens sooner. Oil keeps flowing. Markets calm down. Headlines celebrate diplomacy rather than conflict. But faster doesn’t always mean cheaper. In fact, the most expensive outcome may be the one that sits awkwardly between victory and defeat. The question hanging over this agreement is whether Trump has blinked first. Iran was under enormous pressure. Its economy was struggling. Its regional proxies had been weakened. Its military capabilities had been exposed. For perhaps the first time in years, the regime looked vulnerable. So why offer it a lifeline? Why give the ayatollahs breathing space rather than forcing them to the point where they have no choice but to abandon their ambitions altogether? History is littered with regimes that used ceasefires, negotiations and diplomatic breakthroughs the way a boxer uses the stool between rounds: not to quit the fight, but to recover for the next one. That is the danger here. A diplomatic bargain that allows the Islamic Republic to rebuild its finances, strengthen its position and regroup its allies will ultimately be no different from a defeat. Perhaps worse. Because defeats are at least honest. Everyone knows who won and who lost. Middle-way solutions create the illusion of success while preserving the conditions for the next conflict. And that’s the uncomfortable reality facing Trump. There can be only one choice: win or lose. Either Iran is forced to abandon the revolutionary project that has destabilised the region for decades, or it survives to continue pursuing it. There is no durable middle ground between those outcomes. No magical third option where the regime remains committed to the same objectives but somehow ceases to be a threat. Trump’s best path forward would be recognising that reality. Yet this agreement appears built upon the opposite assumption. Perhaps this deal succeeds. Perhaps Iran abandons decades of behaviour and embraces a new era of transparency, moderation and good faith. And perhaps the Ibis at our local park will stop raiding our bins every Thursday night. Until then, this looks less like the end of a conflict and more like an intermission. The shooting may pause. The talking may begin. But zealots rarely stop their zealotry. I expect the Iranians to simply find new ways to pursue the same old goals. Read this article on The Daily Declaration: dailydeclaration.org.au/2026/06/17/zea…

I'm just spitballing here, but .... maybe because you didn't start Tesla? Or Space X?

Claire @ClaireFosterPHD

a week ago

I don't understand why Elon is a trillionaire but I worked as a public school teacher for 57 years with almost no sexual assault allegations and I'm broke.

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The BBC contributed to the civil unrest plaguing the UK over mass migration by passing off news that an asylum seeker had attempted to behead a man in Belfast as just another "stabbing", writes James Macpherson. skynews.com.au/world-news/glo…

Police Call for “Calm Heads” after Attempted Beheading in Belfast by James Macpherson [Commentary] Northern Ireland police have responded to an attempted beheading by urging locals not to lose their heads. I promise I’m not making this up. As if it wasn’t bad enough that an asylum seeker had tried to cut off a man’s head in the middle of a Belfast street, police chief Brendan Mullan told reporters… “This is a time for calm heads.” Tell that to the victim, a local man now fighting for his life in hospital after his head was near detached. More on the reaction by authorities in a moment. But first, if you’ve not seen video of the incident circulating online, I should warn you it is harrowing… That said, every European should see it. A Sudanese man, aged in his 30s, can be seen sitting astride a man in the middle of the street, cutting at his neck. He shouts “Allah Akbar” in Arabic. Shocked bystanders can be heard saying… “He’s trying to cut his head off! He’s slicing his head off!” A man finds a hurling stick and begins hitting the attacker as others join in before police arrive. Police confirmed they arrested an asylum seeker on suspicion of attempted murder. Which is something. We should all consider it a step forward that the police didn’t arrest the man with his head half cut off. But I digress. Authorities later confirmed that the suspect had travelled from Sudan to Paris and then on to Belfast where he claimed and received asylum in 2023. Police and politicians urged people not to share video of the attack. Because whenever a horrifying crime exposes the catastrophic failure of immigration policy, the real danger is people seeing it. They insisted the video should not be shared “for the sake of the victim and his family”. Give me a break. If politicians were concerned about Irish families, they would not have presided policies that permit Allah Akbar School of Knives graduates to be granted asylum. Politicians are not worried about “causing further trauma to the injured man’s loved ones”. They are worried about video of the attack causing trauma to their re-election chances. And so they should be. Irelanders should be furious that this man was given asylum in their country. Police, naturally, have said there is no evidence that the attack was terror-related. Again, this is why the video must be shared widely. I’ve watched it. The attacker clearly yells “Allah Akbar”. Read more: dailydeclaration.org.au/2026/06/10/cal…

Video with subtitles of yesterday’s attempted beheading of a young British man by a Somali migrant in Belfast. It’s a hard watch but Europeans must see it. Those who intervened and smashed a shovel over the attackers’ head are heroes They most likely saved that young man’s life

🇦🇺 The really sad part about what is happening to Australia is in a few decades time no one will remember how bloody good we had it for a while

And this is why the Coalition continue to tank in the polls. Incredible stuff

Kathryn P. 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♀️ @009Kat

3 weeks ago

Please 🙏 open your mind to this @ajamesbragg if women do not have the legal right to segregate by sex, in female only spaces that were created to mitigate male on female sexual violence and sexual entitlement, then that is state coercive control over our female bodies.

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We Are No Longer Present by @JamesMacpherson There was a time when going to the theatre involved a rather radical idea: you went, you sat down, and you watched the thing. Not half of it. Not while simultaneously conducting a parallel existence in your pocket-sized digital universe. The whole thing. From beginning to end. Without outsourcing your attention to 47 different notifications about parking, dinner, or someone you vaguely knew in 2013 posting a photo of their sourdough. Just you, the stage, and the uncomfortable possibility that you might have to think uninterrupted thoughts for more than eight seconds. But apparently that era is now considered quaint. Read more: dailydeclaration.org.au/2026/06/03/we-…

If the Henry Nowak video doesn't get the UK to revolt, nothing will

@ervie56334 @TheCalebBond Danica’s foot is numb, but that’s due to her heels not the chairs 😎

Trans Row Erupts It's one thing for Canberra to act dumb; they've been doing that magnificently for decades. It's another thing entirely for Canberra to demand that we all join them upon threat of prosecution. Sex is a fixed biological reality. @jamesmacpherson #Opinionated

‘Lottery winners’: One Nation surge leaves Coalition on life support youtu.be/W5aUcFKw0sE?si… via @YouTube @SkyNewsAust Sky News host James Macpherson claims conservatives are abandoning the Liberals in droves as support for One Nation.

Put Labor in the bin. Straight in the bin. State & Federal- the bin.

Rachael Wong @RachaelWongAus

4 weeks ago

And there you have it. 🇦🇺 Prime Minister @AlboMP thinks calls to #FixTheSDA to ensure sex-based rights for women and girls – including single-sex spaces, services and sports – is a "culture war". It seems the safety of women and girls is not a priority for @AustralianLabor 😒

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@FootyonNine Carlton ... hands down

Watch Dan Tehan duck and dive the 'Why don't you ditch the Paris agreement?' question.🤪 You put your left foot in, you put your left foot out and shake it all about... and off he waffled. The left-wing moderates still run the show. Why the Liberal Party is going backwards in the polls. #auspol

Left-Leaning Liberals (Moderates) undermine the party. Macpherson Report Andrew Bragg has got form with a long history of WHY the party is on its knees. James tracks his poor record of failure since he was endorsed by the Turnbull/Photios moderate left to replace the late great Jim Molan. afr.com/politics/forme… @LiberalAus #auspol

The NSW Minister for Women claiming to be clueless as to what a woman is shows just another politician governing by slogans and not the truth, writes James MacPherson. skynews.com.au/insights-and-a…

James Macpherson and captains Joe Hildebrand and Lucy Zelić take on another news quiz. tvtonight.com.au/2026/05/airdat…

Good. But beggars belief that it's taken a decade for the Liberal Party to arrive at this point.

Senator the Hon. Michaelia Cash @SenatorCash

a month ago

STATEMENT BY @AngusTaylorMP Yesterday the Full Federal Court confirmed that Australian law does not properly protect single sex spaces for women and girls. Most Australians would find that hard to believe. A coalition government I lead will fix this. We will amend the Sex

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