Malcolm Turnbull’s famous excuse for not wanting to touch section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act – ‘it is not…

My christmas stocking fillers An exciting group of new and emerging writers exploded onto the literary scene in 2016. So,…

In this era of media lists – such as Fitzy and Wippa counting down the Top 20 Mind-Numbingly Trivial Celebrity…

In her defence of her wretched Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs boasted that the Commission has been processing some 22,000…

I couldn’t ask for a present this Christmas. First, what’s left for a conservative to wish for after this astonishing…

Festive baubles The two seasons I love most in life are elections and Christmas. As we near the year’s end,…

A late Sunday afternoon visit to Bunnings to acquire a necessity now in short supply, incandescent small bayonet light globes,…

THIS is a confession of sorts. Since the rise of Trump, I’ve been sneering along with the best of them…

In the weeks that followed first Brexit and then Donald Trump’s election to the US Presidency it seemed that many…

Humour is not a feature one normally associates with a National Press Club address. I was surprised and somewhat humbled…

The Fairfax-reading, ABC-viewing middle classes are getting rattled. In Victoria, 2,400 extra police officers are to be employed to help…

Although drinking excessive levels of alcohol is up there with Olympic cycling and democracy as things the British excel at,…

The morning is cold and dark but the orchard is thronged with birds. Moorhens dash from one side to the…

In the early 1990s, after the shock of the 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie, I began to do some research…

I was drinking in the bar of Manhattan’s Nomad Hotel when in snuck The Most Seen Human Ever To Have…

One remark from the Christmas party season knocks insistently around my head. It came from Nigel Farage on a staircase…

My colleagues at the commercial and chancery bar are all at their chalets in Gstaad, funded by the endless fees…

The Prime Minister’s office is a small, unimpressive room in 10 Downing Street with miserable views and unexceptional furniture. Since…

Now that almost six months have passed since the EU referendum, might it be time for old enemies to find…

There have been two revolutions in television during my lifetime. The first happened in 1975 when Sony launched its Betamax…

Santa Claus ate Father Christmas. It happened quite suddenly. Well, it took about a decade, but that’s suddenly in cultural…

One thing I won’t miss about No. 11 Downing Street are the Christmas cards: 2,056 Christmas cards to be exact. That…

If only I’d known. If only I’d foreseen that the teenage classmate who strode through our school gates every morning,…

Trying to write the first draft of history on the EU referendum and the leader-ship mess that followed had both…

Justin Welby Archbishop of Canterbury There have been lots of wonderful answers to prayer over many years, including recently. One…

Few 20th-century historians doubted that the 1917 Russian revolution was one of the most influential events of their time, indeed…

When I come home from work and stick my key in the door, there is a pitter-patter of tiny feet…

In the spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge, here, in no particular order, are my current irritants:   • Paddy Ashdown   • Lady…

Julia should not have come to the wedding. That much was clear as soon as she arrived. Late, she was,…

It’s weird being friends with someone who suddenly becomes President of the United States, not least for the reflected glory…

Charlie Zailer wasn’t sure if she’d won or lost. On the victory side of the equation, she’d managed to avoid…

SpeccieLeaks presents: Transcript of private meeting between President Trump and President Putin, 14 February 2017, Andreyevsky Hall, Grand Kremlin Palace…

What is a ‘kudo’? According to the Taxpayers’ Alliance, it is a mark of honour, many of which should be…

Forgotten anniversaries 2017 is the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution. Other anniversaries:50 years Radio 1; first North Sea gas…

Novelists can’t merely tell cracking tales. We’re supposed to save the world. At the University of Kent, a student implored…

Gay progressives Sir: I am a great admirer of your magazine. It brings some balance into the political debate. I…

Taking precedent Sir: In his excellent piece on the Supreme Court Article 50 ruling (‘Brexit in the balance’, 3 December),…

January The cost of an annual season ticket from Cheltenham to London rose to £9,800. Oil fell below $30 a…

From a letter published under the heading ‘The religion of the ordinary soldier’, The Spectator, 23 December 1916: During a discharge…

When The Spectator was founded 188 years ago, it became part of what would now be described as a populist…

Many (well, several) of you asked me what happened to George, the supermarket chairman who was the anti-hero of my…

This is going to be a positive, optimistic column. I promise. Because, look, let’s be honest, I’ve been a bit…

Merry Christmas everyone. Here are some things I learned — or relearned — in 2016.   1. That which does…

After we were married, my husband and I went on honeymoon to Mexico. We drove across country east to west,…

Few years will live as long in the memory as 2016. Historians will ponder the meaning and consequences of the…

They will be sitting there right now, listening tearfully to the song for one last time on their dinky little…

‘Are you Charles Moore of The Spectator?’ I answered to that description. ‘Well,’ said my questioner, ‘I am worried that you’re…

On the London Underground last week the carriage was crowded. No seat. No problem. I’m only 67 and content to…

After a slow start 2016 turned out to be a pretty good year for Australian writing, with excellent books across…

1. Kingsley Amis 2. Beatrix Potter 3. Graham Greene 4. Salman Rushdie 5. Nick Hornby 6. Arthur Conan Doyle 7.…

Why do humans want to build robots? It seems, on the face of it, to be a suicidal endeavour, destroying…

Imagine receiving an anonymous suicide note addressed to you by mistake. Would you try to find that person, to help…

If you’ve ever read a history of the early days of the Foundling Hospital, you’ll remember the shock: expecting to…

When I was 22 I met a man called Yisrayl Hawkins who said his coming had been prophesied in the…

In these books, two handsome and popular telly adventurers consider, from viewpoints that are sometimes overly autobiographical, the culture of…

Cousins is a curious novel. If I’d been a publisher’s reader, I’d have consigned it to the rejection pile after…

The story of the extraordinary boom in children’s literature over the last 100 years could be bookended with a ‘Tale…

A woman birthing bloated speckled eggs from her supernaturally swollen womb. Sushi screaming and squirming. A skull-shaped sweet, bearing the…

D.J. Taylor’s clever dissection of snobs is really two books in one. Scattered throughout are entertaining, delicious (initially), solemnly related…

Here is William Diaper in 1722, translating Oppian’s Halieuticks (a Greek epic poem on the loves of the fishes): As…

Forgotten? Though I can rarely attend their dinners (in Birmingham), I am a proud member of the Buckland Club (motto:…

In August 1939, Clare Hollingworth, a 28-year-old aid-worker, had been employed as a reporter for less than a week by…

All readers know that good novels draw us into other worlds. I cannot think of another, however, which so alarmed…

Here are two approachable and distinctive books on our churches, great and small. Simon Jenkins’s cathedrals survey follows his earlier…

Cometh the hour, cometh the book, and so Christmas brings us once again a tidal wave of titles relating to…

In 2013, Pavel Dmitrichenko, disgruntled principal dancer of the Bolshoi, exacted a now infamous revenge on the company’s artistic director,…

Legends cling to Bram Stoker’s life. One interesting cluster centres on his wife, Florence. She was judged, in her high…

The post Spot the British Author appeared first on The Spectator.

When I was a child, the highlight of the summer holidays was when my cousin Simon came to stay. We…

‘Brahms and Liszt’ is a lovely bit of rhyming slang, but it doesn’t have the ring of authenticity. Can you…

For the past few weeks I have been working my way through Decca’s gigantic set of every note Mozart wrote…

In this season of watching and waiting as we approach Christmas and year’s end, radio has a precious role. At…

When I was a child in the 1970s, the two big excitements of the run-up to Christmas were first the…

What if? is the engine of every great story. What if the toys came to life when their owner left…

Mostly I’m more interested in what is to come than in what’s already been, but I have let my mind…

If you were to see one film about American whistle-blower Edward Snowden — there is no law saying you have…

On 27 July 1613 a man prostrated himself in the church of San Pedro Mártir in Toledo, having first made…

The other day, I had lunch with the grandest person I know. Forget 1066: Adrian Ziani de Ferranti can trace…

I have agonised over this Christmas review. I ate the Christmas lunch at Harveys Nichols 5th Floor Restaurant, Knightsbridge, next…

Here we go again, my 40th Christmas column in a row, and it seems only two weeks ago that I…

We’re driving east, destination Grasse. Hairpin bends circling oak-clad hills. Autumn gold and scarlet. Exciting cambers. Blinding winter sunshine. The…

My husband has an irritating habit of holding his hymn book open at the right page but obviously not referring…

‘Right, this is it,’ I said to the builder boyfriend. ‘I am going to knock on the door of next…

I’m keeping my eyes peeled for one of those billboards saying ‘A dog is for life, not just for Christmas’…

It is a long time since I spent a morning on the gallops with the footballer-turned-racehorse trainer Mick Channon (he…

I matured on Chateau Tahbilk – as the Central Victorian winery was then, in the late 1980s, known. As an…

The traditional orange at the bottom of a Christmas stocking dates to a time when this was the only orange…

The post Battle for Britain appeared first on The Spectator.

Simon Cochemé, whose witty column appears monthly in English Bridge magazine, celebrated his 70th birthday with a knees-up and duplicate…

The annual London Classic is now underway at Olympia. Understandably Magnus Carlsen, after his exertions in New York, is not…

Black to play. This position is from Topalov-Nakamura, St Louis 2014. Black seems to be in big trouble, but how…

99 (five words) and 20 (four words), whose 37 were 61 (two words) and 35D (two words), are seasonal 53…

Say so 1. Theresa May 2. David Cameron (overheard on air, speaking to the Queen) 3. Jeremy Corbyn 4. Stephen…

Solving serious puzzles — to catch criminals and thwart terrorist plots — is what the men and women who work…

Say so  In 2016, who said:   1. ‘Brexit means Brexit.’ 2. ‘We’ve got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt…

In Competition No. 2977 you were invited to submit a Christmas carol with a topical twist. ‘In the bleak midwinter’…

Unclued lights are types of LIMESTONE. First prize Frances Whitehead, Harrogate, North YorksRunners-up Margaret Almond, Sholing, Hants; P.D.H. Riddell, London…

From Rt Hon Gisela Stuart MP Q. I keep getting into arguments with people about what being a Labour MP…

While American conservatives, including Donald Trump and the Cuban exiles in Florida, whooped with joy at the news of the…

1. Can anyone explain why England wore dark blue, not white, for the autumn international against Argentina, just as they…

 Kenya I realised I had fallen from grace when we were dropped from the Queen’s birthday party guest list at…