The latest travel expenses affair is no more than another recurring symptom of the serious malaise in the Australian political…

The Sussan Ley scandal highlights the monumental problem facing the Turnbull government in restoring its public standing to anything remotely…

I’ve just returned from my fifth trip to Israel in the last decade. It prompted me to recall a conversation…

My two sons, aged 16 and 14, are at the wonderful stage where, in the sharp-humoured traditions of Australian larrikinism,…

A new front in the war against racism has opened up and the fight is being taken to a new…

Once upon a time, a multi-millionaire, former merchant banker Prime Minister, highly successful in business who came to politics later…

In a move that has delighted his fans and appalled his enemies, Breitbart editor and provocateur extraordinaire Milo Yiannopoulos is…

With the onset of the so-called festive season, I fear that two of the more significant newspaper articles of recent…

Just how good a Prime Minister was New Zealand’s recently retired John Key? I ask the question as a right-of-centre,…

The cost effect on the real world of the ideological fairyland of anti-coal campaigners is now becoming worryingly evident. Not…

I grew up believing in a fundamental truth that the North Pole was the magnetic pole. So, of all the…

Donald Trump will not find satisfaction as the 45th President of the United States of America. He really wants to…

Something I have long noticed is how, the moment they leave office, many politicians suddenly undergo a strange transformation where,…

On 2 January, the Vatican published a letter from Pope Francis to the world’s bishops in which he reminded them…

To all those computer hackers exulting in pizza-encrusted bedrooms across central Europe — the US presidential election was influenced! The…

It was October 2010 the night the priest came to our door. The knock startled Tim’s dullard beagle into a…

The picture had been chosen for its utterly gratuitous depiction of female beauty. It showed Justine Henin, the Belgian tennis…

On two occasions, sainted members of my family have offered me a car for nothing. Both times, I turned them…

Michael Gove never intended to make his most famous remark. In an interview during the EU referen-dum campaign, the then…

Black background A Morris dancing troupe with blacked-up faces had to abandon its performance in a Birmingham shopping centre after…

In December I was in a group of writers on a British Council visit to Moscow, where the UK was…

From ‘The Rome conference and bonds of alliance’, The Spectator, 13 January 1917: There may be the greatest possible good,…

Defund Palestinians Sir: Former prime minister Tony Abbott is clearly on the money when he argues that the Australian taxpayer…

Home Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour party, proposed a limit on incomes: ‘I would like to see some kind…

The irony of Barack Obama’s presidency is that while it began at a time when it seemed America’s fortunes could……

At the Golden Globes ceremony, Meryl Streep attacked Donald Trump because he ‘imitated a disabled reporter’. ‘When the powerful use……

From supermarkets to superyacht builders, sales figures are remarkably buoyant: consumer debt may be rising too, but no one can…

Just before Christmas I popped over to Washington DC to test the waters of the Trump administration. I spoke to…

I meant to get the bus, but by the time I arrived at the stop at 5 p.m. last Tuesday, I…

Curbs on executive pay, restrictions on foreign takeovers and workers on boards. Not Jeremy Corbyn’s plan for Britain, but ideas…

The language of the left is a truly transformative grammar, so I suppose Noam Chomsky would heartily approve. There are…

It is easy to see why the bare century of the Tudor dynasty’s rule has drawn so much attention from…

Others goes straight to the head. Things start like this: with an article on a website called ‘Women and Film’,…

Given that he wrote and published some of the most stunningly handsome books of the 17th century, John Ogilby has…

Fans of the novels and poems written by the sibling inhabitants of Haworth Parsonage always have a Top Brontë. Fame-seeking…

Spare a thought for the poor Gulag guard: the rifleman standing in the freezing wind on the outside of the…

I have been researching and writing about black British history for over 30 years but never before have I been…

As I read the last chapter of this book, news broke that the Russian ambassador to Ankara, Andrey Karlov, had…

Set in rural England in 1911, Tim Pears’s latest novel tells of a friendship between 12-year-old Leo, a precocious carter,…

‘John, we need your autobiography.’ ‘I thought I’d express my life experience in song.’ ‘That’ll be fine.’ This would be…

Think of a computer and your mind might conjure the brushed steel contours of the latest must-have laptop or, for…

Here in Munich, in the gallery that Hitler built, this year’s big hit show is a spectacular display of modern…

You will have registered the buzz surrounding La La Land and clocked its seven Golden Globe wins and 11 Bafta…

From a film about ballet to a ballet about film. In reworking the 1948 Powell and Pressburger classic The Red…

Victor Pasmore once told me how he greeted Pablo Picasso at Victoria station. The great man had come to Britain…

All that’s needed for Radio 4’s One to One series (Tuesdays) to succeed is a sharp-eyed interviewer, ready with the…

‘Blimey! How on earth did they think of that?’ is unlikely to be anyone’s response to Our Dancing Town (BBC2,…

God, what a dusty old chatterbox Schiller is. Like Bernard Shaw, he can’t put a character on stage without churning…

In 2015, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest reigning sovereign in British history surpassing Queen Victoria who is the subject…

In 1929 John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2029 people in the developed nations could enjoy a perfectly civilised standard…

We had my parents-in-law Gerry and Jean to stay with us on the farm over Christmas and being in a…

There’s a bit of a ruckus going on in the bridge world at the moment; a lot of people are…

The London Classic is over with the final scores being as follows: Wesley So 6/9; Fabiano Caruana 5½; Viswanathan Anand,…

Black to play. This position is from Topalov-Anand, London Classic 2016. How did Black conclude? Answers to me at The…

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (99) and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (20) – whose DIRECTORS (37) were ERNST LUBITSCH (61)…

In Competition No. 2980 you were invited to submit an extract from a politician’s speech ghostwritten by a well-known comedian.…

Two pairs of unclued lights are theme names. Remaining unclued lights aren’t in themselves thematic, but their unchecked letters complete…

Q. My son decided to go straight into work and has got a job. The problem is that it is…

Someone came up with a century-old quotation plangent with irony and sadness: ‘The year 1916 was cursed: 1917 will surely…

There are Dames and there are dames. Dame Vivien, an old friend, became one for her philanthropy. Dame Edna, the…

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, likes making and keeping New Year resolutions. In recent years he has learnt Mandarin,…

Still depressed, or, as Matthew Arnold put it, ‘the foot less prompt to meet the morning dew’, I got out…

The title of America’s first woman bishop was claimed in 1918 by Bishop Alma White, leader of the Pillar of…

A few moments after saying the communion rite, the priest looked at his congregation and uttered easily the most disturbing…