‘Got to pay your dues, if you wanna sing the blues,’ sang Ringo Starr wistfully after the demise of the…

You really have to go to Washington DC to see the decline and fall of the United States or at…

I devoted most of last weekend to attending the conference of the Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia in Canberra.…

I knew from reading his book that Bob Carr was colossally vain. But still I’m stunned when, 90 seconds before…

Criticising Putin’s military incursion in Ukraine does not,contrary to a stifling new consensus, amount to racism

Global-warming alarmism has become a substitute religion, attended by   all the intolerant zealotry that has so often marred religion in the past

The statistics speak for themselves. This is a gilded generation

Hollande’s ‘new start for Europe’ turned out rather like the old one

Apparently it’s natural to think about dying, but not to plan your own death

The story of a runaway invasion

The guru of self-guided learning on teaching in prisons and the future of exams

Perhaps not – it was the suffragettes’ female opponents who asked for a referendum to check. But it’s easier for us to forget that

Being boring was once the worst of all social sins. Now it’s practically compulsory

As the aircraft descends into the high altitude military airport at Leh, the first glimpse of the Himalayan Kingdom of…

Ed Miliband isn’t afraid to articulate his ideas. David Cameron’s have the advantage of being right. So why won’t he talk about them?

Home AstraZeneca’s board rejected an increased takeover bid of £63 billion by Pfizer. Commenting on the bid in Parliament, Vince…

Plus: The terror of my grandchildren’s history exams, and the greatest artistic loss of the second world war

Plus: the toll of the Troubles, race at the polls, and our changing housing market

Lessons from Thucydides on the present crisis

Why girls do better Sir: Isabel Hardman notes that girls now outperform boys at every level in education (‘The descent…

An encounter with the Chancellor’s less cynical side

Plus: Learning at the feet of Michael Oakeshott

I suppose he’ll be replaced with someone who is nicer to politicians. It’s a shame

The real problem isn't inequality of wealth, it's inequality of behaviour

Plus: Our state-owned railways, and the great Chinese cheese war

A review of Some Desperate Glory: The First World War the Poets Knew, by Max Egremont. This chronological anthology puts the spotlight on the poets' patriotism

A review of How to be Well Read, by John Sutherland. The occasional drift from accuracy shows that Sutherland is both well read and reads well, argues Christopher Howse

A review of The Ten Thousand Things, by John Spurling. This intricately wrought study of medieval Chinese scholar-artists is wonderfully well imagined

A review of Target: Italy, by Roderick Bailey. Whatever their deficiencies on the battlefield the Italian secret service outwitted British Intelligence during the second world war

A review of The Disinherited: A Story of Love, Family and Betrayal, by Robert Sackville-West. This biography of the famous family does not end well

A review of A Curious Career, by Lynn Barber, and An Encyclopaedia of Myself, by Jonathan Meades. Two biographies to delight a dandy

An extract from Three Lives of Dylan Thomas by Hilly Janes, which recalls her father’s friendship with the poet

I supported Australia’s Vietnam commitment in the decade between 1965 (when the Menzies Coalition government deployed combat forces to South…

Michael Henderson talks to the country opera house’s fresh-faced new music director

The loopy line of Jankel Adler, the prints of Norman Stevens, the lucid dreams of Mick Rooney and the paintings of Alan Davie and Brian Horton

A Pas de Calais honours artist who refused to be labeled - and suffered the consequences

Plus: Debris at the Southwark Playhouse attempts to produce heightened drama from murderous squalor – and fails

Where Marcus Berkmann commits professional suicide and admits he likes Abba – and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Thebans, a new ENO opera by Frank McGuinness and Julian Anderson, is short on conviction – and interest

Though his head is encased in papier mache, Michael Fassbender is wondrously expressive in this biopic of Frank Sidebottom

Don’t let London suburbia throw you. This new series of the hyperactive American cop drama, 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland, is as thrilling as ever

When Radio 4 gets it right, the consolation of a great story, beautifully told, lulling the mind into sleep cannot be bettered

You’ll see nothing ‘cream and green and cosy’ in this spiky, gutsy and playful recreation of postwar interiors from Pangolin London

If Sheridan had not invented Mrs Malaprop, Goldwynism would be the word

And then I returned my attention reluctantly to this unhappy, tattooed, self-absorbed, orange-fingered, sexually incontinent, bottle-blonde English woman to whom I was horribly enslaved...

Super So-Kalm Plus, RelaxMe Now, Ventrocalm Intense Instant – just what I need

And if so, where am I meant to find an eight-year-old around here?

The more I watch top-class players bid their hands, the more I abide by the philosophy: points, schmoints! Obviously, we…

From 1950 to 1962, the challenger for the world title was determined by a Candidates tournament of the world’s leading…

White to play. This position is from Tal-Smyslov, Candidates Tournament 1959. White’s next move was a bombshell which led to…

In Competition No. 2846 you were invited to invent the six rules for writing of a well-known author of your…

The unclued lights (one doubly hyphened) share a medical similarity. (Despite appearances there are no rude words in the puzzle!)…

The unclued lights are the surnames of people (nine of whom were botanists) who gave their names to flowers.  …

The more avid a support I’ve become, the more pain the Super Hoops have caused me

The Brendan Eich case proves US politics is just too absurd. And you’ll soon be able to buy a Mustang over here

Plus: The trials of a minor media personality, and what to do if a friend has egg on their face

No one better than Valentine Cecil to see off the ’63 Graham’s

And other alarming neologisms