If there’s one thing Labor always does better than the Liberals, it’s party conferences. Even in Government, Liberal snoozefests attract…

It’s time for ‘unethical’ coal to fight back

The Prime Minister and the journalist Greg Sheridan go back a long way. The other evening in Sydney’s Parliament House,…

Ridiculously premature talk of Prime Ministerial succession, commentary by John Howard on the need to secure national borders and a…

Two plebiscites, a convention, a referendum, massive funding and a bloke in a red bandana. But will it work?

Indigenous Australians cannot help but respond to racial taunts

In the surreal tropical politics of contemporary Malaysia it is good business sense to use government funds to make loss-making…

His friends prosper; his enemies wither. But how long can it last?

It's in a long left-wing tradition of consolation and self-reassurance in the face of economic reality

Dispatches from the beach: ‘The smugglers don’t care what happens – they just put you on the boat and say: go’

Their fundraising practices will have to change, after a huge increase in complaints from the public

American conservatism has become accustomed to a narrow, purist appeal. It doesn’t have to be

If the Science Centre represents a transition from shipyard to pleasure dome, the Necropolis still stands for the Second City of the Empire

The second chamber plays a valuable role in parliament

Home A man died when 1,500 migrants tried to enter the Channel Tunnel terminal in Calais in one night. The…

The author of The Miniaturist on horse-racing, solitariness, editors and Twitter

Plus: money laundering; drugs in sport; IQ and income

The enthusiasm of the young is not an unmixed blessing, as the Greek philosopher knew

From ‘The new standard’, The Spectator, 24 July 1915: If a change must be made at all, it is worthwhile to…

Plus: legislation to pursue the Isis brainwashers; Low Life’s violent episode; a case against the RAF; and milkmen

The ‘modernisers’ are curiously stuck in the 1990s – while the party membership has shifted far to the left

Plus: the surprising pleasures of a cruise; revisiting Honfleur; the Pink ’Un; Jeremy Corbyn’s out-of-date beard

With only the slenderest tweaking of the national mood, it could conceivably happen

Their extreme indifference isn’t just amoral, it’s a cause of crime

More often than not, my most memorable travel experiences happened in Muslim countries. I can't see the same happening in a generation's time

Plus: Busting myths on Lloyds’s takeover of HBOS; AO World’s troubles; and the thrilling Yanis Varoufakis

Chilled, Tom Jackson’s enthralling history of how refrigeration changed the world, takes us from Mesopotamian ice-houses to the Large Hadron Collider

Two new books — Rainbow Dust by Peter Marren and In Pursuit of Butterflies by Matthew Oates — celebrate the powerful myths surrounding these ravishing ephemera

Left of the Bang, Claire Lowden’s sparky fictional debut, is a comic exposé of the non-glamour of London life, where no one’s having fun

All Involved, Ryan Gattis’s buzzing thriller about riots and racial tension in 1992, might just as well have been set yesterday

There was no Islamic extremism in China until Beijing inadvertently created it, according to Nick Holdstock’s measured history of the Uighurs of Xinjiang

Sir Roy poses as Henry VIII, Rasputin, Tennyson and other assorted princes, priests and poets in a series of mock masterpieces by the photographer John Swannell

Melanie McDonagh’s selections include adventures in Wonderland and in space

Glamour, romance and a deposed monarch are vividly evoked in Andrew Duff’s nostalgic history of the beleaguered Himalayan former kingdom

The Mark and the Void, Paul Murray’s follow-up to the much acclaimed Skippy Dies, is sharp, satirical and utterly of the moment

I grew up queer in Bjelke-Petersen’s Queensland. Bjelke-Petersen was populist, racist, and religious: he hated socialism, but the Queensland of…

After ten years of covering Edinburgh, Lloyd Evans can at least predict the errors he can't avoid blundering into

We forget that the great symphony orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic were once radical project ensembles — until they became part of the establishment

Plus: a Californian light and space artist who would have interested Turner at the White Cube

The London Coliseum’s latest dance gala showed that Bourne’s supremacy as the master of popular dance theatre is being challenged by his partner Arthur Pita

But for really stylish Handel playing head to Iford Manor for their 80s-inspired Agrippina

Plus: BBC1’s new Agatha Christie adaptation Partners in Crime should be somewhere between a disappointment and a car crash

Plus: Richard II as Graham Norton at the Globe

There is something captivating about Albert Maysles’s documentary portrait of Iris Apfel and her mad outfits

Plus: why Radio 4’s Inside the Ethics Committee is as gripping as any drama. And we have a nose around the tiny libraries of New Zealand

It is an out and out masterpiece so any new production of The Marriage of Figaro matters a great deal.…

Good manners are as much a part of our culture as great books, great paintings and great classical music

Trev always stops and has a fraternal chat with the lads

When I need a minicab, it's time for HelloMelissamylovelyyouwannacarmy-love?App

Forty years ago, Henry Keswick offered me a job for which I seemed wholly unprepared. Here's why I took it

Imagine going to a golf tournament and finding yourself competing against Rory McIlroy; or a tennis match and facing Roger…

Alexander Petroff (1794-1867) is often remembered as the first great Russian chess master. He became the strongest player in Russia…

White to play. This position is from Howell-Sokolov, Staunton Memorial 2009. How can White finish off his attack with a…

In Competition No. 2908 you were invited to submit a comically appalling opening to an imaginary novel. Thanks are due…

One unclued light (hyphened) is a 38 of a word hidden in the grid. Two unclued lights are definitions of…

Unclued lights complete the titles of Carry On films. First prize Tony Hankey, London W4 Runners-up Mark Roberts, Hostert, Luxembourg;…

This is the second time someone has been murdered a few feet from my home

When people are free to choose what they buy, they buy more and pay more

Plus: When an old crush comes back on the market; staying in Oxford; and a daughter-in-law’s debts

News from the junior branch of the Odd Bottles, plus some stories from its senior service

Maybe it’s turning into standard usage. But it still makes me squirm