What is the meaning of the Yellow Vests?

Could Australia be the only nation where, when we’re asked to name our ‘greatest leader’s’ key to success, we say: ‘he could certainly scull a beer’? The national broadcaster’s new two-part series, The Larrikin and the Leader, is (yet another) lush tribute thrown at Hawke’s aging feet. But all this might be yet another sign that we’ve too long had the beer goggles on when it comes to Bob Hawke.

For some sections of the radical and not-so-radical left, the idea of universal basic income (UBI) is the new utopian program. A UBI is a periodic minimum income guaranteed to all citizens, regardless of their employment, wealth, or domestic status. In other words, it’s a no-strings-attached state wealth transfer, a price-tagged right for precariat and tech billionaire alike. But there’s a reason why UBI has proponents among the libertarian right.

Though doubtless left and right use it, ‘virtue signalling’ is a reactionary catch-phrase. The context of Bartholomew’s ‘discovery’ of the term says much: he was researching a book denouncing the British welfare state. For Bartholomew, a virtue, rather, is a ‘sacrifice’ like ‘staying together for the sake of the children’, or it’s a charitable act like ‘delivering lunches to elderly neighbours’. It’s not political speech, certainly not online.