Australia prides itself on being a young country. For generations after independence in 1901, we still saw ourselves as essentially…

My modest proposal for the reform of the Labor party is to relieve Billy Shorten of his duties and make…

I was thrilled to see the implacable enthusiasm of Afghani voters as they lined up in their thousands for hours…

A lamentable by-product of the media in the digital age is its frequent lack of good manners. Ridiculing opponents rather…

There is no groundswell of support in favour of a new flag,  so why does New Zealand’s centre-right PM support change?

If only the media would give us something, anything, which provides a glimpse of the real Kate’s personality

Robyn Nevin shines in Neighbourhood Watch

Memo to my old party: ditch the carbon tax and keep faith in the Hawke free-market reforms

We need the voice of our shared culture now more than ever

Why are unionists so scared to talk about what unites us?

Not at all, says its members. Just a little, well, 'emotional'...

In cities, changes to the skyline are subject to careful planning. Not so here

On Costard the Clown and a half-forgotten showbiz dream

The power to effect real change may lie with dynamic city halls rather than ossified national governments

Everyone knows somebody who belongs to a book club. From informal gatherings of bookish friends in living rooms and cafés…

The handling of Maria Miller's expenses demonstrated yet again why Ed Miliband is the luckiest political leader alive

Home Maria Miller resigned as Culture Secretary after a week of being the centre of a game of hunt-the-issue. She…

Sunday afternoon brings the bomb squad to South Kensington. From my third-floor window, I see them fan out through the…

An ancient philosopher had the former culture secretary’s mindset pinned

Plus: How qualified is the science and technology select committee?

In loving memory Sir: When Clarissa Tan covered last year’s Good Funeral Awards, it quickly became apparent that she was…

The ex-minister is seeking outsider appeal on the basis of unrepentant liberalism

Plus: The need for real contrarians, and the sad fate of Lord Irvine’s wallpaper

Why are we supposed to admire ‘brave’ Kelly Osbourne checking into a clinic because of her weight gain?

Maybe it's because they don't like us, either

But here is why it was worth it anyway

Plus: From golf courses back to farming in County Kerry

A review of Selina Todd’s ‘The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class, 1910–2010’. The working class may disappoint radicals, says Alan Johnson, but that doesn't mean their best days are over

A review of Jan Ondaatje Rolls’ ‘The Bloomsbury Cookbook: Recipes for Life, Love and Art’. How to make Dora Carrington’s nectar of cowslip wine, Vanessa Bells’s scones or William Cobbett’s loaf

A review of Lydia Davis’ ‘Can’t and Won’t’. Susan Hill finds flashes of genius in Davis’ latest collection of short stories but she’s not sure everyone will

A review of Nick Hunt’s ‘Walking the Woods and the Water’. Hunt retraces the footsteps of Patrick Leigh Fermor across the suburban wastelands of Holland to the woods of Transylvania

A review of Michael Oakeshott’s ‘Selected Writings, Vol VI: Notebooks, 1922-86’. Other nations know how to honour their philosophers – and this was a major philosopher

A review of Ingrid D. Rowland’s ‘From Pompeii: The Afterlife of a Roman Town’. The dead city is still capable of changing lives – Ingrid Rowland proves it

A review of Jeremy Treglown’s Franco’s ‘Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936’. A lot of the great art and film made under Franco’s regime has been unfairly tainted by association

A review of Peter Ackroyd’s Charlie Chaplin. His films may have been all sweetness and light – but Chaplin's ego had few limits

A review of Arianna Huffington’s ‘Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Happier Life’. You've seen the advice a thousand times. But the person giving it is something else...

A review of John Borrell’s ‘The White Lake’. An escape to the country for Borrell turned out to be a struggle for the soul of Poland

A review of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Echo’s Bones’. Considered too Beckettian for 1933, this recovered short-story is an allusive riot

A review of Anthony Seldon and David Walsh’s ‘Public Schools and the Great War’ and ‘Private Lord Crawford’s Great War Diaries’. Crawford’s entries undermine Seldon and Walsh’s rose-tinted view of public school conscripts

A review of Peyton Skipwith and Brian Webb’s ‘Edward Bawden’s Kew Gardens’. A beautiful book is somewhat weighed down by its scholarship

Rumer Godden’s An Episode of Sparrows, first published in 1955, focuses on the roaming children — the ‘sparrows’ — of a shabby street in bomb-torn London. When ten-year-old Lovejoy Mason finds a packet of cornflower seeds and decides to create an ‘Italian’ garden hidden in a rubble-strewn churchyard, the consequences are life-changing for all who become involved. Below is the foreword to a recent reissue of the novel (Virago Modern Classics, £7.99, Spectator Bookshop, £7.49).

Let’s get one thing straight: gullibility is not a virtue. This simple principle appears to be difficult to grasp for…

Whether it’s Bridget Riley or Richard Hamilton, Francis Newton Souza or Bob Law, the quiet radicals of the 60s and 70s are experiencing an overdue revival

KLF were right all along when they left the music industry, went to a deserted boathouse and burned a million quid

Theatre Royal’s 'Kingston 14' offers no pick-me-up (Goldie’s slim cameo doesn’t count), while the Arcola’s 'Banksy: The Room in the Elephant' offers no solace to the man the artist made homeless

Visit Kent’s great gardens rather than this V&A exhibition if you want a more accurate impression of this ‘father of modern gardening’

A trip to the Globe brings out the best in Royal Opera House’s Kasper Holten while a tick-boxing visit to Ambika P3 for Thomas Ades’ Powder Her Face doesn’t do the ENO any favours

If you're not hooked by Calvary from the start, there's probably something wrong with you, writes Deborah Ross

The Crimson Field may be set during the First World War but the battlefields it focuses on are mental health and gender equality

Plus: Alan Dein and Fi Glover uncover extraordinary stories from several ordinary-seeming lives

Children will love this butterfly exhibition at the Natural History Museum

Two case studies in the twisted priorities of the modern world

Terry, eBay and the Merc

All those hypochondriac little lights. It's worse than me!

(Oh, and the widening wealth gap)

The news that two German doctors have been found guilty of cheating at the world bridge championships in Bali last…

The Candidates tournament has been won by Vishy Anand who adopted the safety-first policy of winning two of his first…

White to play. This position is from Mamedyarov-Aronian, Khanty-Mansisk 2014. White’s next was an ingenious way to demonstrate that his…

In Competition 2842 you were invited to compose the most off-putting book blurb that you could muster. There’s just space…

Round the perimeter clockwise from 1 run six lights of a kind (7,9,10,9,9,8): if the grid were a 13/12, they…

The MUSICAL (33) BARON (29) Lloyd-Webber’s BIRTHDAY (40) was on 22nd March; he was 66 (hence the title). His works…

And the one I could

For me, it’s a mattress topper. For you, it might be different

Plus: How to face down wrong-stamp shame

Once you've finished laughing, here are the wines to watch

The BBC was quite wrong to put it in inverted commas