There is some irony to the fact that 570 acres of what is today Bankstown, a suburb home to a…

Decisions, decisions

Our incestuous politics

From mendicant Melbourne to bereft Ballarat...

With the right policies, Labor can be defeated

Judicial power is out of control

The Senate submissions stitch-up

Use 18C to ban the anti-Jew hate marches

Grumpy Greta’s obscene pantomime

Long-term Labor rule is not guaranteed

It is party time in New York as we toast the launch of The Spectator’s swish new office on Fifth…

For the past decade I’ve been in a toxic relationship. Sure, there were red flags – most of them on…

A poll has confirmed what most people know already – personalised number plates are vulgar, divisive and a complete waste…

Failing institutions don’t like challenge, let alone being shown up. Few institutions are failing more tragically than our prisons –…

The antics of Keir Starmer and his top security adviser over the collapsed China espionage case bring to mind the…

Whatever you think of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, there can be no doubt about this: she firmly…

If you walked down the Strand in London on Tuesday this week you would have been greeted by hundreds of…

Jilly Cooper, the last great Englishwoman of my lifetime – after Queen Elizabeth II and Debo – has died. The…

This is West Cornwall, land of fishing, jam first and Trotskyite crafters. There is a sizeable community of nutters yearning…

Hamburg What would happen if Russia was planning an attack on Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia – and the threat was…

Sir Keir Starmer said that Britain had come to a fork in the road. As usual, he took it –…

There have been 106 Archbishops of Canterbury since Gregory the Great declared Augustine his ‘Apostle to the English’ in 597.…

Home Two men at a synagogue at Heaton Park in Manchester were killed on Yom Kippur when Jihad al-Shamie, 35,…

Out of office French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu resigned after just 27 days – making his time in office 22…

To the studio! Podcasts, if you ask me, are the one good thing to have come out of the digital…

Zero chance Sir: In Tim Shipman’s wide-ranging article on Kemi Badenoch (‘I have a lot of self-belief’, 4 October), she…

I’ve just got back from doing a spot of shopping in my local town – and do you know what…

Scientists at the Oregon Health and Science University have created the beginnings of a baby using not human eggs, but…

Between news bulletins of the Manchester synagogue attack last week, I popped into my local Co-op for some groceries. When…

Can you be a spy by mistake? If, with no treacherous intent, without ever intending to disadvantage your own country,…

British politics often resembles a golden-age murder mystery, with multiple parties sitting anxiously on the sofas/green benches waiting for the…

‘The facts of life are Conservative.’ This sentence is often attributed to Margaret Thatcher, whose centenary falls next week. The…

We owe the ghostwriter of this book a debt of gratitude. A novelist called Geraldine Brooks is cited as a…

Aged 58, and suffering from Parkinson’s, Del Amitri’s chief songwriter never loses his sense of humour as he treks across America, playing in cowsheds, state fairs and parking lots

The views of today’s young Americans should concern Israelis, says Marc Lynch. With no memory of Israel’s foundations in 1948, they are considerably more pro-Palestinian than their parents

Ferdinand Mount identifies three distinct sentimental revolutions – in the 11th, 18th and 20th centuries – that transformed legal frameworks and social structures as well as hearts and minds

Tolerance pushed too far by LGBTQ+ demands may soon turn to intolerance, and legislation can be rolled back in the blink of an eye, warns Ronan McCrea

The closer we get to the mystery of Annie, a 19th-century consumptive locked up in a tower by her wealthy father, the more we are lost in other stories within stories

Even by 17th-century standards, George Downing’s duplicity in serving both Oliver Cromell and Charles II was exceptional and set new standards for unscrupulousness

Threatened with beheading by the Taliban in 2021, some judges managed to flee the country. But many remain in hiding, having destroyed all evidence of their qualifications

Works by Strauss, Holst, Rossini, Schoenberg and Wagner are all targeted, while Hildegard of Bingen’s music is pronounced a ‘psychedelic bore’

If ever there was gorgeous chocolate-box theatre it’s this magnificently staged production of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca directed by Anne-Louise…

First the surprising news: not a single one of the four Guinness siblings in 1868 Dublin is black; and only…

Oh, how we lived. Or, how we thought we lived. Despite the numerous criticisms levelled at the BBC on a…

Grade: A Bohuslav Martinu was a patchy composer; worse, he was also a prolific one, meaning that if you dip…

The Last Dinner Party received quite the critical backlash when they arrived amid much fanfare in 2023. Posh, precocious and…

The French lutenist Charles Fleury, Sieur de Blancrocher, is one of those unfortunate historical figures who are chiefly remembered because…

I have my routine down to a science. At 6.59, I’m sitting in the stairwell, typing on my laptop or…

Hamlet at the National opens like a John Lewis Christmas advert. Elegant celebrations are in progress. The stage is full…

The National Railway Museum is 50 years old, and it’s come over all literary. A quote from Howards End stands…

R:Evolution is a pun, presumably intended to suggest that tradition is not static and the obvious truth that change always…

A few weeks ago I went along to a lecture on the Welsh artist, poet and soldier David Jones. Kenneth…

Talking with an old friend recently about relations between the sexes, I said men these days don’t know if they’re…

Do you know Banjo Paterson’s ‘Clancy of the Overflow’ I asked? Yes, was the answer, I have it off by…

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna ‘Welcome back, signore!’ said the woman in uniform at the all-seeing security doorway which passengers must walk…

I am, like a strain of Withnail, in the John Lewis café by mistake. I meant to review the new…

I was amused to read about the spat that broke out on Greta Thunberg’s flotilla between conservative Muslims and members…

So we won’t be watching the Boat Race next year on the BBC, but on Channel 4. Never again will…

Q. I am shortly to attend a big London party at which I will see many old acquaintances. However, first…

The house fell silent as the last of the tourists took their oat milk and pretend cheese from the guest…

Back in the days when politicians were real flesh and blood rather than social media pushovers, I sat down with…

The momentum augured badly for Fabiano Caruana in the final match of the Grand Chess Tour, held in Sao Paulo…

For Competition 3420 you were invited to submit a poem or short story incorporating that sentence of Emerson’s: ‘The louder…

White to play. Cmiel – Leitner, European Senior (50+) Championship, October 2025. The situation looks hopeless, but White found a…