It was the Del-Cons — published in our pages — wot won it and the thumping victory for conservatives at…

A few months ago, I was cleaning up my study to see what could usefully be discarded, so that my…

Like many Speccie readers I’m old enough to remember when men smoked pipes on buses and tradies whistled. I can…

Australia owes a debt of gratitude to GetUp!, the George Soros funded outfit with an almost missionary zeal against conservatism.…

Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, used to be thought of as the King’s Cross of Melbourne. It was the heart of…

Last month, the UK’s version of Jerry Springer, The Jeremy Kyle Show, was cancelled after a guest suicided post-recording. Steve…

I have been on sabbatical now, living in London, since the beginning of this year. During that whole time I…

We’ll never leave Paris

All political philosophies are rational according to their own logic. Even reprehensible and morally repugnant ideologies can appear logical if…

Operating from the bowels of Parliament House is the highly secretive OCPC, the Office of Commentariat and Polling Coordination. Despite…

Parties don’t get rid of their leaders unless things are going very badly. But this Tory crisis is different in…

At a dinner in the Irish embassy in London last November, Dominic Raab believed he was on the brink of…

My 91-year-old father-in-law has always had a terror of hospitals. This dates from his time as a Royal Marine when,…

The Queen has seldom had more holes in a state banquet seating plan. The leader of the opposition, the shadow…

I’m meant to be peering into a tunnel hacked out by Hamas a few hundred metres from Gaza City into…

Did you see the Welsh Tory MP David Davies and a pro-Brexit protester arguing outside parliament, pointing cameras at one…

 Kigali, Rwanda To most outsiders, Rwanda is still synonymous with genocide. Nearly a million killed in 100 days; almost three…

Poor Mr Bergstresser. He put up the money to start the financial reporting company but his name wasn’t as snappy…

The day after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Donald Trump arrived by helicopter at Turnberry, his golf course…

Home The Brexit party, led by Nigel Farage, received 5,248,533 votes (out of 17,199,701 cast) in the European parliament elections,…

Recording the BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures has brought me to five cities and five styles of questioning. Cardiff had…

Tears for fears Theresa May welled up while announcing her resignation in Downing Street. How often do leaders cry? —…

The MPs wishing to replace Theresa May as prime minister have policies — but do they know what their electorate…

Leavers only, please Sir: Your leading article (‘The end of May’, 25 May) correctly calls for the Conservative party to…

Jeremy Hunt’s approach is very odd. It is the first time I remember an aspirant for the top job saying:…

Is it ethical for vegans to own cats? It’s an interesting question because vegans look set to take over —…

If I’ve been incredibly rude to you or snappy or tearful lately, if I’ve taken offence where none was intended,…

Philip May seems a decent cove. He’s been stoic and loyal but I can’t help hoping that the next prime…

The cryptocurrency winter has turned to spring: having slumped from $20,000 in late 2017 to $3,200 a year later, bitcoin…

I must have seen hundreds of opera productions in my time. Out of these, hardly any made a lasting impression…

Several years ago, I was interviewing the garden writer and designer Sarah Raven at her home in Sussex when a…

Q: What’s worse than listening to someone ranting hysterically about Donald Trump? A: Listening to Bret Easton Ellis ranting hysterically…

All cities are shapeshifters, but London is special. London is a palimpsest of places gone but not lost. Even as…

We live in a logic-obsessed world, from computer modelling of the economy to businesses run by spreadsheets. But we also…

Few Peruvians today are interested in ‘the Shining Path years’, which left no traces besides 70,000 mutilated bodies and a…

We ought to cherish the haunted landscape of the Thames Estuary while we can. The grey hulks of old power…

Mary Norris’s book about her love affair with Greece and the Greek language starts with a terrific chapter about alphabets.…

The movie that made me consider filmmaking, the movie that showed me how a director does what he does, how…

Holding the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936 was a coup for the British avant-garde, putting newbie surrealists such…

‘Put yourself in their shoes,’ says Zahra Mackaoui, a British-Lebanese journalist who has been following the stories of refugees from…

Igor Levit has rapidly achieved cult status, as he certainly deserves. He has already reached the stage where he can…

T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets is full of music and movement. The players, such as they are, slip, slide, shake, tumble,…

‘It’s no use at all,’ says Posy Simmonds in mock despair, holding up her hands. ‘I can’t tell my left…

May was a cruel month for those middle-aged liberals who treasure their old alternative rock heroes. There was Morrissey, appearing…

Sunset is French-Hungarian writer-director Laszlo Nemes’s follow-up to his astonishing Oscar-winning debut, Son of Saul. This time round the film…

Arts Council England takes money from almost all of us and spends it on culture for almost none of us.…

When you see the opening caption ‘4.6 billion years ago’, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re watching a programme…

Plastics — even venerable, historically eloquent plastics — hardly draw the eye. As this show’s insightful accompanying publication (a snip…

Where would we be without the Tudors? Certainly our shelves, stages and screens would seem empty without their era which…

I didn’t like it, and then I did like it. But a writer’s job is to tell the truth, as…

Considerate to the last, she had her order of service arranged in her mind. I sat close with my notebook.…

The receptionist fixed me with a withering stare. I had just filled out a repeat prescription form and politely inquired…

Laikipia, Kenya   A cheetah perched in the front seat of your gold-plated Lamborghini. Stick that on Instagram in Saudi…

I’ve recently been reading Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca to my children, and while it’s every bit as enjoyable as…

Gawain Jones has fought his way to the no. 1 position on the UK ranking list by a series of recent…

Black to play. This position is a variation from today’s game, Hillarp Persson-Jones, Malmo 2019. How can Black conclude the…

In Competition 3100 you were invited to pen an ode to Alexa or Siri. A recent Unesco study claimed that…

Clues are presented in strict alphabetical order of their solutions. Solvers have to assign the solutions to their correct places…

The unclued lights (with the pair at 37/26) are orchestral CONDUCTORS.  First prize Elisabeth Johnson, Toronto, CanadaRunners-up Gareth Davies, Langstone,…

For anyone who isn’t following the long march of racial self-flagellation through America’s institutions, last week’s revelations about the excesses…

Well, you have come a long way baby. As the whizz-bang hoopla of the cricket World Cup strides into view…

Q. A delightful but disorganised friend has invited several of our circle for a weekend at his family’s beautiful country…

Café Diana is a Princess Diana-themed greasy spoon in Notting Hill Gate. It is a mad place, but it is…

After he invented the term young fogey (in The Spectator in 1984), the much lamented journalist Alan Watkins coined the…