‘Today, I say very clearly, Labor will support reform which is fair. Labor will fight reform which is unfair,’ said…

Britain leads the way - but where?

The mystique of Anzac Day has always been a challenge to historians. The troops of several countries at Gallipoli fought…

The twin-engine turbo-prop lands in a downpour, skidding to a halt outside the terminal. ‘We haven’t seen rain like this…

I have directed 13 feature films in the US and now, for the first time, have shot one in Los…

You will be distressed to hear that I have recently been in the hands of the doctors. However, there is…

On the ongoing Speccie debate - when should conservative commentators attack Abbott (if at all?)

Hardened cockpit doors and ‘depression’ are more comforting to our modern minds

He’s not an out-and-out ideologue. But he is indecisive, full of strange ideas about business, and convinced that he’s a man of destiny

There will be tax rises to suit every taste. But the people he’s expecting to pay will probably just leave

The eccentric candidate represents the best of British bloody-mindedness. Long may he stand at the back

If the battle over communion for the remarried doesn’t die down, one side or the other may take drastic measures

We must fight back now, while some people in Britain still remember how to walk

Is a video call an adequate substitute for a seeing your children in person? Some judges seem to think so

What it feels like to wait for the start at Aintree; and my tip for the general election

Seven days on a boat with Jeremy Clarke. What could possibly go wrong?

Labour and the Tories are going to take as much of the vote as they have at any election since the 1980s. And yet they seem resigned to a hung parliament

Home Tony Blair, the former prime minister, opposed a referendum on membership of the EU. In a speech at Sedgefield…

Plus: The conquest of London by money, and the triumph of Matisse

Plus: Tips for picking a Grand National winner; and the difference compulsory voting makes

Would we recognise Virtue if she stood for election?

From ‘Our Home Guards’, The Spectator, 10 April 1915: There is nothing of the national picnic; or of playing at soldiers…

Fraser’s Folly Sir: Thoroughly enjoyed the tributes to Mr Fraser (Spectator Australia 28 March). So Peaches has his trousers; I…

It seems that nothing will dent the SNP’s appeal – not even the fact that the Tories are counting on them

He blamed the police for his daughter travelling to Syria, never mentioning that he took her to Islamist rallies

If you can believe yourself without sin, you’re more likely to cast the first stone

Meeting the Golf V6 Four Motion was like being propositioned by a supermodel

Plus: Advice on cashing in your pension; Allen Sheppard, Thatcherite convert; and my Nicola Sturgeon regret

Philip Hensher revels in the smallest details of the composer’s memoir, while admitting he is no fan of the music

A review of Galileo’s Telescope reveals how once it was considered the most dangerous instrument in the world

In a review of Peter Brown’s The Ransom of the Soul A.N. Wilson finds that the afterlife of the early Christians was largely influenced by money

Riots, unemployment, Sunday trading, Aids, apartheid, The Satanic Verses — in a review of God and Mrs Thatcher by Eliza Filby, Charles Moore reveals a whole sweep of subjects where the two coincided

In a review of A Decent Ride, James Walton finds that Irvine Welsh is not a writer who’s mellowing with age

In a review of Gold Fever by Steve Boggan Sara Wheeler discovers that the search for gold is as addictive as crack cocaine

Footballers and vampire bats have a touching amount in common, discovers William Leith in a review of Touch by David J. Linden

In a review of Defending the Motherland by Lyuba Vinogradova, Charlotte Hobson celebrates the courage and stamina of Stalin’s ‘night witches’

Melanie McDonagh enjoys browsing Daniel Hahn’s new Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature, but wishes it had pictures

Anthony Cummins finds breezy irony in Amir Tag Elsir’s disturbing novel about the first outbreak of Ebola 40 years ago

Allan Massie finds that King John’s reputation goes from bad to worse - and that Richard III seems a paragon by comparison

Duncan Fallowell has delighted for many years in the letters of his Mexican friend Pedro Friedeberg, but wonders what on earth to do with them

As 8 1/2 returns to our screens, Ian Thomson explores how a period of creative limbo spawned one of the greatest, dreamiest films ever made

The watercolours of this mid-20th century British painter/designer may be slight but it doesn’t stop them being delightful

Marcus Berkmann hesitates to recommend the music of Chris Rainbow (RIP) mainly because you probably won’t like it

Plus: Why I vow never to see Madama Butterfly again

But Ismene Brown is still mightily impressed by Scottish Ballet’s Streetcar Named Desire

Plus: Spend Spend Spend, a stylish musical revival that should get a West End transfer - but they need some celebs

It doesn’t come with one sentimental ending but several. Every character in fact seems gets their own

Dara and Ed drive across Central America, Richard Ayoade and Adam Hills visit Istanbul and Griff Rhys Jones trains it through Africa

And why has the BBC abandoned making programmes for children?

The Bond film franchise has run out of ideas and is pulling its punches for fear of offending foreign governments. Why 007's finest days are behind him

Writers’ Festivals may well be taking over the world. Worse things could happen but their expanding scale and level of…

After my vodka-fuelled speech at the Polish Club, I was mobbed by Spectator readers

Unexpected consequences of a Spectator Life party

Let the games begin again (sob)

Let’s hope and pray they are still hibernating

Bridge has always been a game of highs and lows, but what happened to Janet de Botton and her partner…

I learn from The Problemist, the organ of the British Chess Problem Society, that the polymath Dr Jacob Bronowski also…

Black to play. This is from Cochrane-Staunton, London 1842. How did Staunton exploit his menacing build up of pieces on…

In Competition No. 2892 you were invited to submit an irregular quatrain in which you bring together two people from…

Four of the unclued lights (one of two words) and an unclued pair are of a kind, and can become…

The theme is CATS; the unclued Across lights are breeds of cats and unclued Down lights and TOPCAT (which had…

I expect victory to go to the side that makes the fewest mistakes. And I reckon that’s my one

As the obvious fixes are found, we discover less and less likely ways that things can go wrong

Plus: Do 21st birthday parties really have to last 48 hours now?

A drink to make you understand Treasure Island’s pirates — and a tasting with Ranald Macdonald

‘Pious stuff’ is a phrase with a whiff of Westminster about it