They call it the silly season, when not much is happening in politics, so far-fetched yarns and preposterous anecdotes get…

John Howard tells the story about a public meeting organised by the Women’s Electoral Lobby back in 1974 when he…

To let one ship become embedded in Antarctic ice that was supposed to be melting might be understandable. But to…

‘A bunch of Y-front wearing pansies’ is how one of my conservative friends describes the Abbott government. It’s an interesting…

How to account for the collapse of the English cricket team? Hint: it has little to do with Aussie brilliance

Blame permissive society, not simply booze, for the violence and bloodshed on our streets

Trendy commentators have fallen in love with a pope of their own invention

I was a boy of ten when the Profumo affair began at Cliveden, my family’s home. Andrew Lloyd Webber has captured some of the story – but not all

Has there ever been a better story? It's like a version of Titanic where first class cheers for the iceberg

Obesity is about self-control – and most of us no longer have any

The former Spectator editor remembers his brilliant wine correspondent

Five decades of delight began at midnight on the platform for the Flying Scotsman

The 2014 winner of The Spectator’s Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for unconventional travel writing, illustrated by Carolyn Gowdy

Winter garden visiting is a solitary pastime, lending itself to the misanthrope, and is highly recommended. When it’s so cold…

The Chancellor's fight with Ed Balls over welfare is a great thing for the Tories. His fight with Iain Duncan Smith may not be

Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made it clear in a speech that he intended to cut £25 billion…

Plus: Learning to fly, and rejecting the devil

Plus: Who goes to A&E, and how much pollution is really stopped by driving at 60mph

A ‘meme’ is ‘an idea, behaviour, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture, often by mimicry’.…

Plus: Daniel Hannan's own pirate party, and the charm of Peregrine Worsthorne

The Labour leader has to argue against his own intellectual position – and do it convincingly

Plus: A bishop deprived of his palace, and a former Tory MP buried in a Palestinian flag

The Murnaghan Show's ambush of the Ukip leader continues a dishonourable tradition

The claim that gays think only of themselves and the present is, in my experience, the opposite of the truth

Legalising cannabis isn’t as exciting as you’d expect. But it may be much more important than you think

Plus: The boss to watch for 2014, and the acronym that Jim ‘Bric’ O’Neill should have chosen

Clarice Lispector is revered in Brazil. Benjamin Moser's fascinating biography deserves to make her much better known here

The Foundling Boy is only the second book by 90-year-old, award-winning Michel Déon to make it into English. It won't be the last...

Lucinda Hawskley thinks she knows. But her The Mystery of Princess Louise presents no hard evidence

In 1976, as the National Theatre moved into its new home on London’s South Bank, its literary manager Kenneth Tynan…

Brian Moynahan's Leningrad: Siege and Symphony brings together the story of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony and that of the siege of Leningrad to inspiring, heartbreaking effect

The Long Voyage: Selected Letters of Malcolm Cowley reveals a great reviewer who preferred to rehabilitate and encourage, rather than rebuke or revile

John McEwen's handsome and substantial biography shows why John Bellany was the most influential Scottish painter of the 20th century - and just how much he overproduced

Cory Bernardi’s book is a reminder of the traditional values that made Australia and inspired earlier generations to fight for…

Matisse, Rembrandt, Italians, Germans, Vikings and the court of Ming are all in store at Britain's great museums this year

Why are there so many productions of Richard Strauss's gargantuan operas, and so few of Gluck's works of genius?

The pianist tells the Spectator his dazzling career was inspired by the Tom and Jerry Show – and that sometimes he has to fend off bad spirits

The most recent ditty to join the Christmas canon was Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas is You, in 1994. We deserve more joy

The Duck House, about the MP expenses scandal and politicians' peccadilloes, is the best show now playing in the West End

Steve McQueen's third and best film spills with great performances - but it belongs to Chiwetel Ejiofor

The BBC can never talk honestly about the immigration problem because it's responsible for the cultural mindset that made it possible

Plus: Why there's so little space on your local war memorial for the names of World War II heroes

All exhibitions commit sins of omission, but the omissions in Georgians Revealed are unforgivable

... and how I discovered a young, plump Jodie Foster leaning over a Xerox machine

I suspect my friend Trev of being a follower of Malamatiyya — a Sufi sect that does good deeds in secret and bad ones in the open

'You can't have your money back because of this, that and the other, and something-or-other about something else...'

Plus: Evelyn Waugh's ear trumpet works better than my state-of-the-art Swiss hearing aid

Riders have been known to spit out dentures, bark like dogs and seize a rival's testicles — all to gain a racing edge

First up, HNY to one and all and especially my regular reader (no, not you mummy) John Hinde, who wrote…

Daniel Johnson, Dominic Lawson and Tim Congdon all had the potential to become chess masters. However, all three chose alternative routes,…

White to play. This position is a variation from Congdon–‘Heinsius’, online game 2014. White has a ferocious attack and now…

In Competition 2829 you were invited to imagine what Philip Larkin might have made of the news that Hull has…

1D is the title of a work minus a word that is suggested by three further unclued lights. Other unclued…

Extra letters in clues give ‘wrapped in wild snow’, a quotation from a poem by ALEXANDER BLOK (10). Partially indicated…

Without drink, I can work harder, sleep better, and feel more in control. But how will I cope with the boredom?

An encounter with a legend in Antigua

Plus: How to snare a widower, and feeding birds without feeding rats

Woolley Grange Hotel is full of old toys, dogs practising camouflage near rugs, and bottle warmers

The fight to the death between ‘shop’ and ‘store’