Category: Wry & Dry

Wry & Dry #28-26 In the top paddock. Grim Jim to backdown? Trumpster washes his hands.  

The Gnats’ Leader has painted his farmyard collective into a sparse corner of the top right-hand paddock. Grim Jim channels Miracle Morrison’s favourite excuse: “Not my problem”. Trumpster’s Armada sails too late to save Iranian protesters. The EU shuts the gate, but the horse has not only bolted but also disappeared. Unique Tasmanian solution to productivity.

Wry & Dry #24-26     Bondi’s blood-soaked sand. 2025 Retrospective.  

Wry & Dry: a cynical and irreverent review of the week in politics, economics and life. For intelligent Readers who disdain the trivial. Investment Matters This week Craig reviews 2025, noting five vital themes: To read Investment Matters, you can still click at the bottom of this week’s Wry & Dry. Or here. Wry & Dry’s […]

Wry & Dry #20-26 Trumpster’s rival. Liberal’s federal extinction. Munich 2.0.  

A win-win: Chris Bowen out of the country for 2026 and $2bn to spend of subsidies caused by his energy policies. The federal Liberals doomed to extinction by demography. And Trumpster’s Munich 2.0 moment approaches.

Well, it’s taken the best part of 2025, but at last Trumpster has a competitor for the most self-satisfied narcissist1 on the planet: Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen.

Wry & Dry #19-26     Elvis still alive? Liberals still alive? Mental derangement.  

Fiftieth anniversaries are optimal for retrospective reconstructions of events. So, it has been with The Dismissal: a prime minister getting the DCM from the GG. Uncle Albo didn’t even wait for the starter’s gun. The Gnats wagged the dog; and the Liberals have given Uncle Albo a great chance at breaking Menzies’ record. New peaks in Trumpster’s mental derangement continue, the men in white coats are standing by. Read on.

Wry & Dry #18-26 Longer than a lettuce. The beginning of the end? It was 50 years ago.

Sussan Ley’s tenure at the top of the Liberal Party looks increasing like that of a lettuce. Trumpster’s bluster about election of a radical left-wing mayor of New York missed the main story: swings of over 7% away from Republicans in special state elections. Is this the beginning of the end of the penny section for MAGA?

On Tuesday it will be 50 years since the imperious PM Gough Whitlam was given the DCM by the GG. Expect the hagiographic media articles to overlook one glaring hypocrisy.

Wry & Dry #16-26 Uncle Albo brings it home. Barnaby’s back! The French Job.

Uncle Albo looked as happy as a clam. Not even Ruddster’s mortification as the ghosts of his chickens’ past came home to roost could dampen the ebullience. Hats off to Uncle Albo’s team for the many months of back-channel planning. The optics of Trumpster being Uncle Albo’s new best buddy were outstanding.

Wry & Dry #14-26  So far, so good. Hasty Hastie. “To lose four is carelessness.”

The widespread conflating of the joy of the hostages’ release with Trumpster’s Nobel Peace Prize Plan (Gaza Chapter) is disappointing. There are at least three submerged logs. Meanwhile, Liberal wannabe prime minister Hastie continues to focus on the future, his own. To the cheering of the far-right echo chamber. And France’s government stumbles like a giraffe on roller skates on ice.

Wry & Dry #13-26  “…like a Colossus.” Two graves. Lipstick on the pig.

“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus.” This is how Uncle Albo now wishes Australians to see him, after his world changing overseas trip. And boy, did he puff out his chest.

And why not? His recognition of Palestine as a sovereign nation played a part in Trumpster’s Nobel Peace Prize Plan (Gaza chapter). And it must be true, as he himself told us: “There is no doubt that recognition played a role in building momentum towards peace.” Sigh. Success has many parents.

Wry & Dry #12-26  King Donald. Moses Bowen. Liberals own Net Zero.

There’s no doubt that the Brits are very good at one thing: running a fete. But it always rains. Trumpster ignored the rain, but Mrs Trumpster’s raincoat will boost Burberry’s sales. And then there was The Dinner and the table that took three days to set; even the king cannot avoid the union’s work-to-rule rules.

Meanwhile, apocalyptic fossil-fuel forecasts hit the news, believed by the ABC but no-one else. Uncle Albo left PNG with egg all over his cherubic face. And the Liberal Party ignores the polls and keeps digging, but a ray of commonsense from Ms. Ley.

Wry & Dry #11-26  Cringing in Beijing. Cost asymmetry. To lose one prime minister is…

Once again, Wry & Dry returns from warmer climes to find an embarrassment of embarrassments occurred in his absence.

Former ‘I stand with Dan’ t-shirt wearers have immolated that insignia of obeisance in disgust at his standing with Tsar Vlad, Emperor Eleven and Kim Jong-Un; the only happiness for the UK government is that the French government is proving even more incompetent; and Tsar Vlad decides it was time to test his Bunnings’ drones against NATO.

Wry & Dry #6-26  Two-day Workers From Home unite! Eccentric orbit. Extinct state?

The Bankrupt State has reverted to extreme idiocy not seen since Chairman Dan ruled with an iron fist: two-day Workers From Home unite! And, inevitably, Planet Trumpster continues to circle the Earth in an increasingly eccentric orbit: TACO returns. And meanwhile, across Bass Strait, political dysfunction that would make post-war Italy seem sensible has resumed.

Wry & Dry #2-26 Mr. Albo goes to Beijing. Interest egg on face. Liberal idiots.

Albo’s plan to boost his lack-lustre frequent flyer miles account after the election was shredded by Trumpster’s fleeing the G-7 in Alberta. Albo also has no desire to meet Trumpster in the White House; why risk meeting Trumpster in front of the world’s cameras, with a couple of 60 Minutes-type gotcha questions ready to be fired?

Better to take a 7-day, all expenses paid (including tips), luxury but twin-share accommodation trip to China. Of course, it will be a week of eating three Chinese meals each day. An Ozempic homecoming for Albo?

Wry & Dry #1-26 Hot date. Ms. Wong goes to Washington. Planet Trumpster update.

The content starved Australian media, and the federal opposition, continue to have conniptions about the when and where of Albo’s Hot Date with Trumpster.

Good grief, Readers should consider what matters for Trumpster and his planet in a galaxy far way: planning for US’ upcoming semiquincentennial (2026), the US budget, Iran, Gaza, tariffs, mass deportations, Taiwan, Ukraine, hourly careful curating of paragraphs on X, and every week-end: week-end golf.

Wry & Dry #40-25 The 12-Day War. 5% income tax. EU – UK = M x M

Trumpster actually flew one of the B-2 bombers that dropped a package on Ali Khamenei’s front lawn. Well, that was one of his dreams this week. The other became reality, that he persuaded Nato countries to spend billions on new military kit, most of which will be purchased from… US companies.

Wry & Dry #39-25 Egos at 20 paces. Singed beard. Goldilocks GDP.

When the two biggest egos in the world start throwing verbal rocks at each other, why would the media worry about Trumpster’s phone chat with Emperor Eleven (on tariffs) and meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (Ukraine)?  It didn’t.

It all started when Musk labelled Trumpster’s budget as an ‘abomination.’ Trumpster’s glass jaw then shattered into a thousand pieces. And that’s when ego overtook rationality. The exchange of insults blotted out the sun.

Wry & Dry #36-25 Gnats incompetence reveal.  AAA loss leads to ZZZ. Bre-enter.

The flat-earthers in the National Party have locked Albo into the Lodge until 2037. This week’s great schism of the Coalition mirrors the ALP split of 1955. And that sandpit fight kept the ALP out of office for another 17 years, until Whitlam gave the treacherous Billy McMahon the DCM in 1972. But by this morning the Gnats might have changed their minds.