Barring any more sudden Ricky Muir-like surprises, it looks as if the Senate will repeal the carbon tax; so allow…

I feel as if I am writing the Diary this week, as I recount the ups and downs of my…

‘We have the full range of politics here tonight — from the hard Left to the soft Left.’ The ABC’s…

To Darwin, for the wedding of dear friends. An idle morning in that gem of a city provided me with…

Eight centuries of freedom is a big deal

It works the sophisticates into a lather, but Chris Mitchell’s Australian is the only serious newspaper in the country

With the good old 30-year rule, Britain can have self-righteous hysteria without anyone in charge ever suffering the consequences

One by one our great institutions have tumbled

On one side: old affluence. On the other: shiny new supercars

Civil servants think they can transform our clean energy prospects. The market doesn’t agree. But you’re paying for their hunch anyway

All those ritual checks distract from the intelligence work that actually catches terrorists

The plight of Dominic Prince shows why legal costs are a free-speech issue

We’ve lived with the Labour leader’s alternative to free-market reform for 15 years. The results are horrendous

The President’s second term is a perfectly ordinary disaster. This response is as irrational as it is counterproductive

And why I loved this one

Expect beauty. Pack waterproofs

Rational debate is poisonous to climatic correctness

Home Theresa May, the Home Secretary, ordered a review, taking perhaps ten weeks, by Peter Wanless, the head of the…

Plus: Paparazzi, football and a plane struck by lightning

Death was certainly not welcome. But control was

No. Plus: What government departments fine one another, and the biggest sporting crowds

Real help for those in pain Sir: The fickleness of existence is exemplified by the fact that being Tony Blair’s…

A big job is in the offing — but only for the right person

Plus: Qatar's role at Royal Ascot, doomwatch with the Prince of Wales, and a novel in verse

I know the rumours. I think they’re mostly nonsense. I don’t expect a fair hearing

When was it, do you think, that Israel stopped being regarded as fundamentally a bit like Spain?

Plus: Who'd want their investments managed like a Tour de France team? And some cricket advice for Mark Carney

A review of The Last Empire: The final days of the Soviet Union, by Serhii Plokhy. Newly unearthed material sheds fresh light on the dying days of the 'Evil Empire'

A review of Everyman’s Castle: The story of our cottages, country houses, terraces, flats, semis and bungalows, by Philippa Lewis. From inglenooks to top-shops, from boarding houses to bedsits, this compendium covers it all (almost)

A review of England and Other Stories, by Graham Swift. These masterful tales about loss and absence conspire to bittersweet ends

A review of How to be a husband, by Tim Dowling. There’s only one joke in this 300-page book – that Dowling’s a terrible husband – but it’s a corker

A review of The Mongol Empire: Genghis Khan, His Heirs and the Founding of Modern China, by John Man. The Mongols made China, argues this book, which means it’s unlikely to get a Chinese translation any time soon

A review of Pleasures and Landscapes, by Sybille Bedford. Bedford journeyed through Italy, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Portugal and Yugoslavia and vividly noted the postwar evolution of Europe

A review of Mammon’s Kingdom: An Essay on Britain, Now, by David Marquand. An interesting diagnosis of why the secular Left failed Britain - with a shy attempt at a solution

A review of Elvis has Left the Building: The Day the King Died, by Dylan Jones. The GQ editor provides a lot of padding to the basic story, and makes no attempt to disguise it

A review of Secrets in a Dead Fish, by Melanie King. It's John Le Carré - but a Janet and John version

The old saw about economics being a dismal science turns out, on the evidence of this short but interesting piece…

Duncan Weldon and Paul Elliott on the West End's good old days - and being shafted

Lloyd Evans says yes – but a Great Luvvie Backlash is inevitable when any public body is exposed to reform

From Babylonian ducks to Norwich City canaries: Andrew Lambirth admires the bravery of Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery’s new survey

The dancing in their new Sadler's Wells show, Sehnsucht/Schmetterling, may have been perfect, but it was also boring

A lot of the best rock ‘n’ roll hasn’t had a bath in weeks but, at the moment, Marcus Berkmann can’t get enough of Coldplay’s lovely glowing textures

Plus: A Glyndebourne production that fails the fragile early Mozart opera, La finta giardiniera

But considering Richard Linklater’s new film Boyhood was 12 years in the making, thank God the kid didn’t turn into a 20-stone slob

Plus: the Globe's Julius Caesar has flat batteries

James Delingpole revels in a hagiographic two-parter on the nerdy BBC2 quiz show

Plus: a Radio 4 drama about a Jewish boy who died in Jerusalem in 1947 that could have benefited from a woman’s perspective

This musical celebration offers the opportunity to tootle across Yorkshire, picnicking along the way

Spectator parties and a berth on a yacht – who could ask for more, or cope with it?

I was looking for a club full of dissolute writers. This is what I found

Big Tom? Really?

At least it's one problem that doesn't affect me directly

'They appreciate not jostling with the big stallions'

The European Team Championships drew to a close last week and the most successful country overall was …England! The doughty…

This was the watchword of Grandmaster Dragoljub Velimirovic, one of the leading players of the former Yugoslavia. I first encountered…

White to play. This position is from Velimirovic-Gipslis, Havana 1971. How did White conclude? Answers to me at The Spectator…

In Competition No. 2855 you were invited to compose an elegy for an endangered profession. Estate agents, travel agents, publishers,…

The unclued lights (one of three words and three of two), as three pairs and three individually, are of a…

The unclued lights are ‘nouns of assemblage’, all listed on page 6 of the Word Lover’s Miscellany section in Chambers…

Take it from an insecure five-foot-eighter: little men have a lot to recommend them

England's captain isn't a great tactician – but he is a great man. His critics would do well to remember that

Plus: Dealing with disgusting dinners, and a student's guide to the muffed mwah-mwah

Nothing is pretending to be anything else, and the stars are agreeably low-wattage

Ask Jane Austen