The action of Judge Michael Jarratt in throwing out the prosecution brought by the Australian Human Rights Commission of Queensland…

I have a terrible confession to make. No, it is not that I was a bully at school, or even…

Kill the Commission: free speech There is nothing that the Australian Human Rights Commission does that cannot be done by…

Finally the US Presidential elections are over; it is Trump after all. After a visit to both coasts stateside, I…

Not just a once-a-year party My spring carnival commenced in August on Lawrence Stakes day at Caulfield. The racecourse was…

From the outside few observers would have guessed that this is where so many of their taxpayers’ dollars had been…

A new front in the ‘welfare wars’ has opened following revelations that a significant number of those dependent on welfare…

Last night I had a dream replete with wigs, robes and gavels. As I recall, it went something like this:…

The still night is shattered by the sound of crackling; the darkness consumed by the blaze of light emanating from…

It was a week of email agitation. You can’t pick your family, they say, and they’re right. Mine is a…

 Washington DC Donald J. Trump’s long, triumphant march to the White House didn’t start on 16 June 2015, when he…

 Beijing A strong coffee always perks me up on a smoggy day, especially when I can drink it somewhere clandestine…

When Britain voted to leave the European Union, the government was at pains to insist this was not a vote…

It was a race between the first dude — Bill — and the first nude — Melania. And in the…

Donald Trump’s shock US election victory has provoked a transatlantic howl of disbelief from a cosmopolitan elite aghast that American…

On the same day I put my spare room on Airbnb I also had my first cabshare experience, courtesy of…

There’s a small corner of Clerkenwell where the communist dream never died. The Marx Memorial Library has been in its…

Frenzied outrage from Leavers and comical paeans of praise from Remainers greeted the High Court’s decision to instruct government that Parliament…

From ‘How to Shorten the War. I. Prisoners’, The Spectator, 11 November 1916: Unless we altogether mistake the mental character of…

Donald Trump predicted that his election would be ‘Brexit times ten’ — which, as far as the stockmarket reaction was…

A downbeat Brexiteer Sir: Alexander Chancellor (Long Life, 22 October) wondered why Brexiteers were not more upbeat about their victory.…

Seeing Trump win reminds me of a season of Dynasty in which my character, Alexis, ran for governor of Colorado…

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said she still expected to start talks on leaving the EU as planned by…

If you’re aiming to refute the suggestion that you can’t comprehend the difference between mob rule and the rule of…

The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States may have signalled the death of the closest thing…

For 18 months, Donald Trump was amazingly useful to British politicians. Whatever their party, he provided them with the most…

The deplorables are rather wonderful people, aren’t they? Both here and in the United States. The people’s revolution continues apace,…

There’s an electronic device on my desk that looks — through its bubble- wrap — like a cheap miniature calculator.…

The California novelist T.C. Boyle has often taken true stories and created alternative histories, from John Harvey Kellog and the…

The Benson family was one of the most extraordinary of Victorian England, and they certainly made sure that we have…

You learn startling things about the long entanglement of the British with Spain on every page of Simon Courtauld’s absorbing…

Genial, erudite and companionable over most of its 760 pages, this stout Georgian brick of a neighbourhood history at length…

The Un-Discovered Islands could not be more different in substance — though it is similar in style — to Malachy…

If you were to take a large dragnet and scoop up all the shoppers in the haberdashery department of Peter…

Timothy Hyman’s remarkable new book makes the case for the relevance of figurative painting in the 20th century, a period…

It’s not immediately obvious, but the silhouette on the dust jacket — soldiers advancing in single file, on foot (‘boots…

One of David Cameron’s choices on Desert Island Discs, this book reminds us, was ‘Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the…

There is a common assumption that experimental writing — for want of a better term — is obscure, joyless and…

Craig Raine   Philip Hancock’s pamphlet of poems Just Help Yourself (Smiths Knoll, £5): charming, authentic, trim reports from the…

When Mozart was commissioned to write an opera for the coronation of Emperor Leopold II, he produced La clemenza di…

There was something unexpectedly moving about hearing not just one but several renditions of the somewhat naive and rose-tinted but…

Nairobi. February 1952. Laughing children brandishing sticks are driving an indignant bustle of ostriches up a rudimentary 1950s-Africa semi-bush runway…

Dynastic affairs and international relations were once a seamless continuum. Royal weddings accompanied peace treaties. An heirless realm was vulnerable…

His schooling was at St Peter’s College, Adelaide followed by the University of Sydney where he graduated with honours in…

Forty years ago this month a film appeared, so prescient I wonder if its author, Paddy Chayefsky, saw the 2016…

Arrival is a big budget sci-fi film with a smaller, more pensive, cleverer film trying to get out, which has…

The catalogue to Pallant House Gallery’s latest exhibition features a favourite anecdote. It is 1924 and a competition is being…

Years ago, when I met a famous concert pianist, I was surprised when he greeted me in a northern accent.…

The post The Battle for Britain appeared first on The Spectator.

The last three weekends have not been relaxing for those of us playing the Premier League, with all its attendant…

The World Championship in New York begins this week. In the run-up, the defending champion, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, has…

White to play. This is a position from Carlsen-Shirov, Biel 2011. Can you spot Carlsen’s crushing blow? Answers to me…

In Competition No. 2973 you were invited to give your thoughts, in verse or prose, on who the Person from…

The unclued lights are of a kind. Ignore one grave accent.   Across   1    Hails a picador, awfully exciting…

The unclued lights are PUBLISHING FIRMS. Our apologies for the omission of clue 42 Across. It went missing during the…

Q. A man I know (but not very well) has invited me and another girl to stay in a villa…

Harry Morgan is a Jewish delicatessen and restaurant in the style of New York City on St John’s Wood High…

 New York Americans have been to the polls. Everything is over but the shouting — by the loser, that is:…

At the beginning of November 1980, one week before Ronald Reagan won a landslide victory in the presidential election, Henry…

‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand,’ said my husband, ‘it’s scented candles.’ Now, we have never knowingly harboured a…

A wonderful email has arrived from Airbnb entitled ‘Discrimination and Belonging — What It Means For You’. Having tried to…

Jurgen or José: compare and contrast (and please write on as many sides of the paper as possible). Is there…

I give an after-dinner speech occasionally called ‘Media Training for Dummies’. That may sound condescending, but the dummy in question…

When Theresa May came to power the Turf community was full of hope. Had she not been, if only briefly…

I didn’t fancy the hotel breakfast, so I wandered into Arles old town looking for a café. The weather and…