No, we’re not talking about Labor’s improvement in the opinion polls. We’re referring to Kevin Rudd’s proposals to wind down…

The crowded Thanksgiving Service at St James, Kings Street, Sydney, for Charles Copeman, the mining executive who died aged 83…

The first public opinion polls since the return of Kevin Rudd show that the Labor party is in with a…

Al Forsyth, a man who has crossed the Kokoda Track nearly 90 times, told me not to worry, to trust…

Remembering an antipodean founder of Thatcherism

British sport is experiencing a remarkable renaissance

A Europeanised economy won’t work

Moments after Julia Gillard’s downfall was announced I took a call from Jason Morrison, live on Radio 2UE. Virtually levitating with…

Ideology has corrupted a valuable British institution

What you need to know about being born a Windsor

The battle over the King's School in Tynemouth shows just how deeply confused Labour has become about education reform

People enjoying a lifestyle are choking and denigrating people trying to build a life

At 85, the film director Nicolas Roeg is pleased to see the critics catching up with him

Middle East protest has its roots not in Islam but in frustrated enterprise

His Grace the tenth Duke of Richmond gave my father the job of running his beloved racecourse, Goodwood, when I…

Ed Miliband’s relationship with Len McCluskey was defined in a brief camera shot at the Labour party conference in 2010.…

Home There was a fine game of hunt-the-issue over the process to find a replacement, as parliamentary candidate in Falkirk,…

The frantic promotion of the proposed HS2 rail line — a white elephant in the making — is a reminder…

Family games Andy Murray said that as a child he lived in the shadow of his elder brother Jamie, who…

Lord Hennessy has been arguing that, as a result of TV debates between party leaders prior to elections, ‘the plausible…

Tax breaks for families Sir: Hugo Rifkind is wrong to imply (6 July) that the current income tax system is indifferent…

As if the poor Egyptians didn’t have enough on their plate, into the arena marches the man to sort it…

Ed Miliband doesn’t take a risk unless he has to. In his first two and a half years in charge…

Andrew Mitchell was forced to resign as the Tory Chief Whip last autumn because he called policemen at the Downing…

An email exchange with a Conservative-leaning friend this week left me feeling sheepish. But if shameful my behaviour be, I’m…

The wine waiters at Claridges are taking a keen interest in the investigation into malpractice in Falkirk. And they’re hoping…

‘Does anyone seriously doubt that this amazing scheme is actually going to go ahead?’ boomed Boris Johnson last week. ‘No…

Sam Leith finds shades of Jeffrey Archer and Boris Johnson in the 19th-century prime minister

The Charleston Bulletin was a family newspaper produced between 1923 and 1927 by the teenaged Quentin Bell and his elder…

This is the third volume of Isaiah Berlin letters; one more to go. Discerning critics have showered the first two…

On 14 April each year, nori fishermen gather on a hillside overlooking Ariake Bay on Kyushu in southern Japan to…

Ronald Knox, found awake aged four by a nanny, was asked what he was thinking about, and he replied ‘the…

The subtitle of Carole Seymour-Jones’s quietly moving biography of the brilliant SOE agent Pearl Witherington is ‘the real Charlotte Gray’.…

The Unwinding is a rather classy addition to the thriving genre of American apocalypse porn. The basic thesis can be…

We were never going to get ‘come to the party’ or ‘a hundred and ten per cent’ from The Authors…

Lloyd Evans meets Peter Nichols, who, in his ninth decade, is riding a wave of public favour

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on about Glastonbury. I wasn’t there, I never have been and, unless forced…

I’m not the first person to remark that Verdi is getting oddly little attention in this his bicentenary year, especially…

Pacific Rim is a giant monsters v. giant robots film and although written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, who…

As more time elapses since the regrettable fracas over Kitaj’s 1994 Tate exhibition and his tragic suicide in 2007, he…

What exactly are the ‘secrets of the royal bedchamber’? That the actual bed was seldom if ever slept in let…

It’s always a problem with Macbeth: what accents to use? The Globe is applying the traditional remedy. Lord and Lady…

Those who lament sluggishness in contemporary stagings of Balanchine’s ballets — and those who are responsible for it — should…

Last week I was on holiday with my family on the Algarve. The good news was that, thanks to the…

Out and about in Surrey on Sunday I happened upon a scene that could have been played out 77 years…

Tapestries once had a place of honour in fine art, but that was during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.…

I remember it well. It was August 1952, and I was dining with my parents on the Palm Beach casino’s…

Searching the web for information about the enigmatic Bilderberg group, I came across a website called Who Controls America? It’s…

This is the story of the amazing, disappearing car warranty. It is a cautionary tale that all second-hand car buyers…

The days may be long gone when a husband would pretend to commit adultery in a Brighton hotel so as…

Tor Helness, the Norwegian-born superstar who now plays for Monaco, partnering his wife Gunn in the European Mixed Teams, had…

As previously reported, 45-year-old Boris Gelfand, the oldest player in the tournament, convincingly won the Tal Memorial in Moscow. This…

White to play. This position is from Al-Sayed-Georgiev, Fidé World Rapid 2013. What is the most accurate way for White…

In Competition 2805 you were invited to submit toe-curlingly bad analogies. Congratulations! You obliged with a stream of analogies glorious…

The unclued lights, two of two words, are of a kind. Elsewhere, ignore an apostrophe.   Across 1 We hear…

Eight unclued lights are EXPERTS (24), whom — according to the words of LORD SALISBURY (9) supplied by superfluous and…

A few years ago, I got the shock of my life when a girl I was sitting next to at…

There’s nothing we old folk like more than a chat about how poorly all our friends and acquaintances are. This…

Q.  I have far too many friends to be able to invite them all to my forthcoming book launch. How…

I write this column at the point of a pitchfork. A, normally so placid — ‘He’s so placid!’ people like…

On 21 June 1785, James Woodforde was in Norwich and in the evening went to Bunns pleasure gardens, where ‘there…