Three recent events have exposed the hypocrisy of the Left. While trumpeting civility and tolerance, and parading its hatred of…

On Quadrant I organised a small fund-raiser to help Quadrant after the Literature Board cut off its grant without explanation…

Pollies’ dictionary The Australian National Dictionary has just published its second edition with lots of new words that have worked…

Last Man Standing An inevitability has struck me about the reconfigured Federal Parliament this week. Despite a plethora of political…

What if the leader of a religious group addressed a public rally in Sydney and openly called for the murder…

No wonder savers are getting stroppy. The Reserve Bank keeps cutting interest rates (and savers’ incomes) in line with the…

The tsunami that has been approaching Australia has finally come ashore and it now wobbles and stumbles through our schools,…

For those of you who don’t follow US sports, let me tell you that there is currently a big brouhaha…

At sixteen, almost half of my classmates from the year before had already left school and were either working or…

Kenneth Branagh’s obsession with Larry Olivier’s career is becoming such a bizarre act of theatrical necromancy that it deserves to…

No group of the population voted to remain in the EU more enthusiastically than students. According to the polling organisation…

Next time it comes to redesigning the PPE course at Oxford, I suggest a module beginning with a quotation from…

Last week rumours swirled round Zimbabwe that Robert Mugabe, the 92-year-old president, had either died or been incapacitated. The government…

It’s a long way from Westminster to the banks of the Zambesi. But last week, for me, they linked up.…

Phyllis Schlafly could have been America’s number one feminist. She graduated from good universities, wrote important books on serious topics,…

I have just returned from one of the world’s most secretive states. I had to apply for a visa a…

I am not surprised that Keith Vaz has been caught sleeping with male hookers. I’m one myself and so I…

They’re called quintas, Joana tells us, because the rich families who owned the land along this stretch of the Douro…

In one village after another across the country, pubs are closing, as many as 25 a week by some counts,…

Home David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, made his first statement to the Commons and…

At weekends in our summerhouse at Quogue on Long Island, we go out to buy the newspapers and paper-cup coffee…

In it together Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley were elected co-leaders of the Green party. Has a political party had…

It comes as no surprise to find that there has recently been much talk among Brexit supporters about ‘the wisdom…

From ‘The burning of the Zeppelin’, The Spectator, 9 September 1916: Half London formed the vast proscenium for this tragedy…

Gonski bureaucrats Sir: John Slater “I don’t Give a Gonski” reflects, unlike what the intellectual left preach, what most mature,…

Calm is slowly returning to the debate about Britain and Europe. The shrillness of the referendum campaign, and the hysteria…

Why has ‘trust’ became such a dominant issue in British politics in the early 21st century? Is it the failure…

It was impossible not to feel rather sorry for the radical Muslim ‘cleric’ Anjem Choudary and his imbecilic henchman Mohammed…

I’ve just learned by heart another poem — my first in nearly 30 years. The one I chose was A.E.…

In the post-Brexit landscape whose shape was barely glimpsed in G20 discussions at Hangzhou, one thing is clear: soon we’ll…

Do you ever tell your pupils that debt is a bad thing?’ I challenged the headmaster of a thriving Midlands…

It was John Howard who famously declared that the government would decide who came to Australia to live and in…

‘Clonakilty, God help us,’ my Irish mother would say automatically when we drove into the town, in pious remembrance of…

Assignats are the bane of every student of the French revolution without an economics background. They were the bonds issued…

There are now enough books about Bletchley Park for it to become part of national mythology, along with the Tudors,…

Not all novelists lead a public life. Those who do, however, tend to make a bit of a performance out…

Some years ago, when I stepped from an unstable boat onto Juan Fernández island, a friendly man took my bag…

Bogotá airport, immigration form in hand. Tourist, migrant, businessman? Andrés Neuman ponders the descriptors, unsure which to tick. He opts…

For Jonathan Safran Foer fans and sceptics alike, Here I Am comes as a wonderful gift, a truly painful, honest…

Helen Rappaport’s new book makes no claim to be a complete account of the Russian revolution. Instead it presents a…

The year is 1963. A girl is walking around Stepney with a pack of index cards, visiting old residents in…

Never speak on the same platform as Sir Malcolm Rifkind. I tried it once, at a Spectator debate held during…

A more appropriate subtitle to this homage to the queen bees of the interwar years might have been ‘How to…

The flour is what matters, and not the mill, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg wrote in his notebook in 1799. ‘When we…

You could say that this book contradicts itself. Robert Moor’s chosen topic is trails — not just walking, where you…

With documentary-makers these days, it can be hard to tell the difference between faux-naivety and the real thing. (Personally, I…

I was looking forward to going to Malcolm Williamson’s opera English Eccentrics set to a text by Edith Sitwell at…

Such a hoo-ha about The Archers this week as Helen faces trial by jury — and, much worse, has to…

Kublai Khan, said Marco Polo, had ‘a more extensive command of treasure than any other sovereign in the universe’. There…

Back in the high optimism of the 2008 presidential campaign, one of Barack Obama’s more extravagant hopes was that ‘the…

They say that the devil gets all the best tunes, and on the basis of this week’s opera-going it would…

Gardens are one of the indicators of civilisation. It is said that the first references to gardens occurred about 4,000…

I had been wondering where Gorgeous George Galloway might pop up next. Defenestrated from his seat in Bradford West, humiliated…

The post The Battle for Britain appeared first on The Spectator.

There are three reasons why I never make ‘psychic’ bids. First, because I’m a wimp. Second, because I often play…

In Competition No. 2964 you were invited to suggest a really bad idea for one, or several, of the following:…

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a…

The 42nd Chess Olympiad is now underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, and English grandmasters are making their best efforts to recapture…

The unclued lights are stations of the London Underground CIRCLE Line. BAYSWATER is the paired theme-word. Solvers had to highlight…

Q. We recently stayed for a Saturday night with an old friend and were warned before we arrived that my…

Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir This morning I was woken just before daylight by the clear ‘ting’ of a meditation bell.…

There is no cherished assumption that now goes unchallenged. The latest one is that country air is good for you.…

White to play. This is a position from Short (England)-Pasaribu (Indonesia), Baku-Olympiad 2016. How did White win material? Answers to…

Having solved the puzzle, solvers are required to highlight a 2×2 square which contains the four letters of the otherwise…

What’s wrong with you?’ That was the question an American broadcaster asked Anthony Weiner when his New York City mayoral…

The autumn bank holiday is like the five-minute bell at the opera. The shades of the prison house loom. All…

I’d seen The Gruffalo in Latin, so I was delighted when Veronica showed me a version her daughter had been…

I have a question for you, dear readers: is it me, or is there no newspaper or network in America…

What is happening to estate agents? Or let me put it another way. If the professional classes thought they were…