The 10 truths the left can never admit, by Bernard Keane, the Politics Editor at Crikey, Australia’s leading PC online journal.

If there are certain truths that cannot be uttered on the right, even by the Prime Minister, for fear of upsetting people, there are similarly facts that no one can utter on the left without incurring the collective wrath of their ideological colleagues. Here they are:

1. “Stopping the boats” was a huge success in terms of preventing loss of life among asylum seekers. …

3. Capitalism has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty around the world. …

4. The left doesn’t trust working class people with their own money. …

8. Trump is legitimate. …

9. 18C should be changed. …

10. Socialism has been tried and no it didn’t work.

No, Venezuela’s failure is not the result of “state capitalism”. Yes the Soviet Union really did implement socialism. No, it’s not true that socialism has never been properly tried. The far left’s favourite shifting of the goalposts aims to wish away a century of efforts by political parties to implement socialism — and the enthusiasm and apologetics of previous generations of left-wingers, who hailed the Soviet Union as true socialism — and declare that if only we did it properly it would work. Sorry.

Amen brother.