Mocking, abusing or vilifying Labor leaders is morally repugnant. Mocking, abusing or vilifying Liberal leaders is cool. Such is the…

I see that Kevin Rudd has been appointed to a teaching job in international politics at Harvard University, specialising in…

The Labor party and many journalists are scandalised (‘aghast’, ‘outraged’) by the Abbott government’s decision to accede to a request…

My wife and the mother of our six children, Lucia, is from an Italian family and two of our disagreements…

Are some subjects too absurd to be made fun of?

The country’s ability to conduct itself as a mature regional power is increasingly in doubt

New York. One of the best overseas postings in Australia’s Foreign Affairs portfolio. So yet another politician is to enliven…

Don’t blame Twitter for the tragic death of Charlotte Dawson

To Sydney for the first of three G20 meetings in Australia this year. It’s a long way to travel, but…

He may finally have the allies he needs to remake the EU

The former Education Secretary is still set on reform at 79

Believe me, it’s not easy to be a Tory in today’s C of E

If you're tough enough, there's nothing more bracing than an online bitch-fight

If King Alfred hadn’t escaped the midwinter raid, the country as we know it might never have existed

At Chatsworth and Waddesdon Manor, and other places, the tradition of patronage lives

If the EU really cares about Kiev, it should shut the wallet and open the membership register

Home Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo detainee who won substantial compensation after suing the British government, was arrested in Birmingham…

Plus: Ignoring the bad news on education, and a new acronym to go with ‘Bric’

Plus: Counting the homeless, and the war over Scottish oil

Tyrants never seem to learn. As Cicero could tell you, there are good reasons for that...

Oh, the horror! Sir: I think the enthusiasm of Dean Bertram for genre horror and sci-fi films (‘Terror Australis,’ 15…

The Tories and Labour can't count on ever winning another majority. Elections will never be the same

Plus: The Macpherson Report at 15, and the best of your first world war facts

Our double standards are remarkable

Or select them, for that matter?

I’m joining a website where my writing will make people happy. According to my friends, that makes it ‘fruitloop central’

Plus: Trouble in clubland, and a paperclip in GCHQ

A review of Dreams of the Good Life, by Richard Mabey. The author of Lark Rise has been ill served by dirt-diggers. This biography is better

A review of 'Strafer': The Desert General by N.S. Nash. General W.H.E. Gott knew how to beat Rommel – but he didn't live to prove it

A review of Boy, Snow, Bird, by Helen Oyeyemi. This Granta Best of Young British Novelist deserves better editing

From Stuart MacBride's Scotland to Bruce Holsinger's medieval London

A review of Blockbusters, by Anita Elberse. If this is what they teach you at Harvard Business School, it's no wonder the most successful CEOs didn't go there

A review of The Dark Box, by John Cornwell. This angry history of confession is sinfully enjoyable

A review of The Kennan Diaries, edited by Frank Costiliogla. Has America ever produced a nastier, more snobbish bore?

A review of Airborne: Scenes from the Life of Lance Sievking. Planes! Prison camps! Modernist radio! And much of it may be true

Macmillan Bello's reissues show Francis King to be one of English fiction's uncompromising truth-tellers

An artist who dreads unthinking habit seeks new inspirations in his childhood interests

The first UK survey of Höch's works on paper brings some welcome surprises

Until 6 July, the Musée Marmottan Monet is even more essential than usual for lovers of the Impressionists

In praise of the Royal Academy's Sensing Spaces

The celebrations for the Birmingham gallery's 50th anniversary are like a compact history of contemporary art

English Touring Opera shows it to its best effect, but I still found myself enjoying their Paul Bunyan more

A holocaust story so determinedly inoffensive that it's almost offensive

The end of certain funding is breaking up closed shops – and letting young talent shine

Plus: The wonder of A Taste of Honey

Plus: Jonathan Creek's charm is as strong as ever, but Hair should have stayed on the cutting-room floor

It's days like this that make it worth all those early starts

The Spectator's Andrew Lambirth is on show with Maggi Hambling

It doesn't matter. The Putin Olympics have made me a happy man

It's better than coke

The difficulties of making an appointment with a Jehovah's Witness

The downside is that readers now have the ability to challenge my every statement

To any player with even the smallest sadistic streak, squeezing your opponents is hugely satisfying. But there’s something even more…

This week I pay tribute to the chess grandmasters from Ukraine, led by Vassily Ivanchuk, many times a candidate for…

White to play. This position is from Moiseenko-Noah, Khanty-Mansisk Olympiad 2010. Even though the game is not yet out of…

In Competition 2836 you were invited to coin collective nouns for the following: tweeters, hackers, hoodies, WAGS, environmentalists, bankers, MPs…

Three theme words which must be deduced each suggest three unclued lights (including one of two words and ignoring one…

Unclued lights can each be abbreviated so that together they give the letters of FEBRUARY: FAHRENHEIT (19), EARTH (32), BASS…

Watching her on Newsnight, I feared for her mental health

We’re just not good with probabilities. But perhaps we can learn to be

Plus: Bridging the class divide on a train, and the cure for ‘Reply all’ blunders

We have the wines chosen. Now we must just wait for the couple to meet and fall in love

Schoolchildren, flood defences, press regulators... it's time to resile