Sorry, Josh, you had your go. And you blew it. Politics is both a brutal and an unforgiving game. As…

Or perhaps they would?

Behind the High Court’s coal conflict

The danger of the Hawaiian shirt

Victoria’s luvvies plan a new starvation policy

Beware the enemy within

Africa’s new heart of darkness

Mr Komfortable of Kooyong to lead the Smarmy Army?

My Uber driver last week was an electrical engineer. He drives part-time, between contracts. He was good company, knew his…

Pauline’s royal commission to expose climate corruption

It often takes an outsider to see us most clearly. When I had breakfast with the ambassador of an EU…

In the late 17th century, Europe’s greatest intellectuals were consumed by the quarrel of the ancients and the modern, satirised…

‘I’ve been here a week, and I can’t figure it out,’ says Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, neuroscientist, teacher and now…

Should Altai the tiger be euthanised? Hardly the cheeriest way to start, I know, but since he mauled a man…

Has Donald Trump effectively changed sides in the Ukraine war? Over just a few tumultuous days, Trump’s already rocky relations…

It is no longer an exaggeration to say that the digital apocalypse is at our door. The advance of artificial…

Good-looking and always smartly dressed, Vito Quiles sports a wristband with the red and gold of the Spanish flag. It…

Ten years ago I moved to Staines and my mate Kwasi Kwarteng took me on a pub crawl. Kwasi was…

In July 2021, the Honda factory in Swindon closed after 36 years. Three thousand jobs were lost. One young apprentice…

Although I tend to keep my romantic nature under wraps, every year Helena, my wife, and I go on a…

Perhaps P.J. O’Rourke put it best. When explaining, in 2016, why a self-declared ‘Republican Party Reptile’ was voting for Hillary…

How much longer has Sir Ed Davey got as leader of the Lib Dems? One gets the sense that his…

Little cheer Sir: I found the headline on Tim Shipman’s excellent article (‘Tories’ reasons to be cheerful’, 10 October) more…

There are times when the absence of Jonathan Swift is acutely felt. One such moment came at the end of…

If the facts of life are conservative then Andrew Griffith is the man entrusted to remind voters of that truth.…

Just back in London from Israel, I give breakfast to Oleksandra Matviichuk. She, with her Centre for Civil Liberties, is…

How do you explain to a child what ‘sharps disposal’ means and why a ‘sharps disposal unit’ for the binning…

For a long time, the mainstream political parties have adhered to an omertà – a ‘never complain, never explain’ –…

The recent 25th anniversary of 9/11 reminded me of a detail from that time. A short while after that terrible…

The real ‘Libor scandal’ was not the fraudulent fixing of official interest rates to boost City traders’ profits and bonuses…

The Bee Gees were a popular trio of singers in the 1960s and 1970s, so named because their lives were…

From the glories of Pride and Prejudice to Doctor Who and Queer as Folk, Andrew Davies and Russell T. Davies have contributed significantly to the national happiness

Five years after his brother’s supposed suicide, Dan Moran receives a puzzling anonymous letter, plunging him back into full investigative mode

Decreased fertility, housing shortages and prohibitive childcare costs are all contributing to an ‘extraordinary wave’ of childlessness unrivalled since the Black Death

Max Hastings’s kaleidoscopic history oscillates from the vast, strategic canvas to individual acts of treachery and heroism in the closing months of the conflict

Fans will delight in Archer’s final doorstopper saga – of ambition, betrayal and sacrifice set against the backdrop of war

No one disputes that globalisation has created dependencies; but Ed Conway could have dug deeper into the tensions between free trade and mercantilism

Ostensibly a tribute to his sister, Spencer’s latest book is really as much about himself – his brotherly kindness and speech-making talents

The modern obsession with politicising every art form seems guaranteed to put anyone off music, painting or literature for life

At the height of the British Empire, our plant specialists were gathering information from every climate zone and returning it neatly classified to the centre at Kew

Any fan of Gerald Murnane would love to see him win the Nobel Prize for Literature. And if it’s never…

Rent is a show about mortality haunted by the untimely death of its author, Jonathan Larson. On the eve of…

Say what you like about Manchester – and who doesn’t, right now? – but when it comes to imaginative programming,…

Jimmy McGovern is a writer whose sleeve is rarely heart-free. Since cutting his teeth on Brookside in the early 1980s,…

Some years ago a concert promoter called Alan Day explained to me how he had revived the touring fortunes of…

Returning to Britain this year, I have been struck by the re-emergence of some of the 1970s’ smoothest sounds. This…

Why are we drawn ceaselessly back into the ever-more-recent past? The 1990s trend has been building for years now, with…

Antibes The poule de luxe stalked through the lobby on six-inch spike heels. In her wake shambled a small son…

I hereby officially declare autumn open! I am picturing myself bedecked with a wreath of perfect autumn leaves. The bright…

Où sont les bouteilles d’antan? Or proprietors. The other day, some of us were reminiscing about Mijanou, in its day…

Inspecting yearlings in the rain at Newmarket last Thursday was a bit like looking at girls in the Windmill Club…

BLACK agent (flack), film (flick), coppers (flics), diptera (flies), circular (flier), cook (frier), FRIAR: 19D DOMINICAN is to be shaded.…

For Competition 3471 you were invited to submit a poem about the Bayeux Tapestry’s visit to the British Museum. There…

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna My mother Joyce was a very beautiful woman who became what ‘normal’ people call ‘mad’. My question…

The carer on my mother’s doorstep took one look at me and addressed me in a slow, patronising bellow. ‘Hello…

Q. My boyfriend and I have moved in with his parents for six weeks for various reasons. His mother is…

It’s rugby, Jim, but not as we know it, as they nearly said on Star Trek. The Northampton vs Bath…