THE F-35 AND DONALD TRUMP: Good Sense from an Unpalatable Man, by David Archibald. Alone among US presidential hopefuls, Donald Trump has pledged to scuttle the gold-plated boondoggle that is the F-35, the airborne essence of everything that is wrong with defence procurement in both the US and Australia. The other candidates? They’ve all been bought and paid for.

A decade ago it might have been difficult for an ostentatious billionaire to become president of the United States. Now that is possibly his biggest selling point. He can’t be bought. There is the chance that he will be making decisions, as president, on the merits of the matter. It could be well worth putting up with his manifest shortcomings just for the prospect of that.