No democratic process is perfect. Going back to the ancient Greeks, through the Magna Carta to the US civil war,…

You may not know it, but I am well-known in progressive circles for my work as a conservationist and a…

Given the recent release of the 2024 Closing the Gap Annual Report and 2025 Implementation Plan, I thought I would…

The ‘genius’ of multiculturalism

Is Albo a one-term PM?

The trade war is just the start

Trump is veering sharply off the rails

Hard choices require a dose of tough love

The EU fails again

Patriots should vote strategically

One of many reasons I felt blessed, seven years ago, to be offered a professorship at the private University of…

One of the striking aspects of the AfD’s success in the German elections was the party’s popularity among the young,…

‘Are you Ramadan-ready?’ That was the poster in Sainsbury’s advertising its delicious range of fast-breaking foods (rice was one). And…

The Forcan Ridge off Glen Shiel can be a tricky place this time of year. There wasn’t a huge amount…

One of the great recurring James Bond tropes is to make it look as though 007 has actually been killed…

In some countries Shrove Tuesday (the day of merrymaking before the rigours of Lent) developed into a ‘carnival’ that lasted…

Steady rain during the day stopped just before Monday’s evening prayers for Pope Francis in Saint Peter’s Square. A line…

Too many books? Yes, we had too many books. That’s what our social worker told us when we were being…

Sixty-five years ago, a British Prime Minister acknowledged that a new world order was coming to pass and that it…

Home Before flying to Washington, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said: ‘We have to be ready to play our…

A couple of months ago, an invitation arrived. Would I like a room at the Savoy for the Baftas? I…

We await the full details of Donald Trump’s ‘take it or leave it’ solution to the Ukraine war, but at…

Rules Britannia Sir: Your rules for national survival in the realist world which we are now entering (‘Get real’, 22…

The world order has shifted on its axis, having been given a peremptory boot by the US President. What is…

On Thursday 16 August 1739, the young John Wesley met and for an hour argued with the middle-aged Bishop of…

Among British car factories, Nissan at Sunderland is the most productive and Jaguar Land Rover at Solihull probably the most…

The head of America’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (Doge) has written to all federal workers in the US asking them…

British foreign policy has always oscillated between isolation and engagement. The division has shaped Conservative thinking over generations. The archetypal…

We should all feel scared to our bones about the persecution of the SAS, soldiers harried through the courts for…

Kyiv We resemble pilgrims. Because of the war, no one can fly to Ukraine, and so we travel, romantically, by…

Well before Trump’s re-election there were serious signs that woke and identity politics had peaked. In the 2023 blockbuster Harvard…

One side wants to preserve core Judeo-Christian values; the other, driven by Islamist extremists, seeks to establish a dangerous new world of deracinated individuals, says Melanie Phillips

As his mental health declined, the record producer Joe Meek grew increasingly fascinated by the other-worldly, communing in graveyards with Buddy Holly and the Pharaoh Ramses the Great

Only after 300-plus pages of tedious filmography do we finally get to the rift with Mia Farrow and the family scandals that have dogged Allen ever since

Two lobby journalists portray the PM as the pawn of ‘the Irishman’ and as ‘a passenger on a train driven by others’ – but there is much more to Starmer than that

It’s Vienna, 1966, and a young labourer casts a speculative eye on a ramshackle café in the corner of the Karmelitermarkt, daring to restore it and improve his lot

Selena Wisnom shows us children toiling over their writing tablets, taking pride in schoolwork, and a heartbroken scribe finding consolation in literature after the death of his king in battle

Tension mounts between young Eily and her 40-year-old partner, Stephen, when Stephen’s daughter, Grace, appears, underlining the couple’s different ages and experiences

Even before the dropping of ‘Little Boy’, the moral line was crossed with the destruction of almost every major Japanese city by incendiary and cluster bombs filled with napalm

‘She hates to see anyone put to death’, said one contemporary of the monarch who abolished torture and serfdom and pioneered the practice of open weekly audiences with the public

The fact that the eminent Irish actor Stephen Rea is doing Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape at the Adelaide Festival from…

Nicholas Hytner’s Richard II is a high-calibre version of a fascinating story. A king reluctantly yields his crown to a…

The Last Showgirl stars Pamela Anderson as a Las Vegas dancer who has reached the end of her career (too…

Ithell Colquhoun was always a bit of a mystery surrealist. Her greatest hit is the unsettling, dream-like ‘Scylla’ (1938), a…

Christie’s is making digital-art history again – or at least trying to. Between 20 February and 5 March, it is…

Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera Festen opened at Covent Garden earlier this month, and reader, I messed up. I broke my…

Drops of God is one of those gems of purest ray serene that cable TV prefers to keep hidden in…

I am a regular attendee at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh’s most ornate and venerable concert venue. On more than one…

Older Speccie readers would have smiled at the vinyl revival. And some would have laughed out loud at the reappearance…

When the Seven News Network asked me to explain the story behind the Aussie expression ‘no worries’ I did some…

La Môme is the new ‘Mediterranean’ restaurant at the Berkeley, Knightsbridge’s monumental grand hotel. It has changed, as all London’s…

The confused world of Duhan van der Merwe must seem more confused than usual after last weekend. The Scotland winger…

Q. A divorced male friend, renting in Notting Hill, has had no historic experience of cooking but has discovered Lidgate…

In 1924 Geoffrey Madan retired, aged 29, and devoted himself to books. ‘A genius for friendship, selfless devotion to progressive…

The hay dealer showed me his latest stock and told me the bright green hay would cost me a staggering…

In racing, superstitions are rife. I once saw a trainer remonstrate with an owner for displaying a green handkerchief: green,…

Kyiv On the morning of 24 February, I woke just before seven as a tentative apricot dawn was spreading over…

Is the ‘Cathedral’ about to fall down? That’s the name given by the right-wing blogger Curtis Yarvin to denote the…