Australia’s early colonization was driven by shiploads of wretched English prisoners, whose descendants at least gained their liberty and built one of the freest countries on Earth. In The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf chronicles the slash-and-burn destruction of liberty by the island-continent’s pandemic-panicked political class. Almost like they want to resuscitate the 18th century prison-island – using sinister 21st century tech and bureaucratic ruthlessness.

A Spite That Knows No Bounds
Gratingly awful global scold Greta Thunberg’s latest stunt is to turn on her own motherland. Sweden has been very good to her, but the former social-democratic paradise’s mugging by the realities of uncontrolled immigration do not sit well with the keffiyeh-clad rabblerouser. “For years, Sweden took more asylum seekers per capita than any other country in Europe,” writes Fredrik Karrholm in The Spectator. “Now asylum numbers have fallen to their lowest level since 1985.”


