At six feet, four inches, Cardinal George Pell was a man who towered above his peers, literally as well as…

Past warming has never been driven by an increase in carbon dioxide

Never let the facts get in the way of a handout

Clergy and administrators need to walk with employees

Disunity might be a life-saver for ailing right-wing parties

Ed needs a place

Words I learned, and learned to hate

A broad church is needed to win government

Who will save us from the Good Club?

Labor blames the opposition not the CCP

Rebellious ‘spares’ are a feature of history

It’s impossible for the Tories to demonise the Labour leader

How it feels to get shot

The Queen Consort is far from being a schemer

Putin’s plan to freeze Europe has failed

Why is social media pushing young women to donate their eggs?

Martin Luther King and the demise of liberal Protestantism

The attempted launch of a rocket via a Boeing 747 from Spaceport Cornwall – the first such attempt in Europe…

Home Government ministers held short meetings with trade union representatives as strikes continued by ambulance drivers, teachers, bus drivers and…

It is rare to find an example of public art which one can applaud, unequivocally, but I think I have…

The Duke of Sussex says that he and his wife can never return to live in the United Kingdom. They…

When Rishi Sunak addressed his cabinet this week, he tried to strike an optimistic note. Despite Labour’s commanding poll lead,…

Topiary is the art of making something be something it wasn’t. This is achieved by subtraction. By clipping away everything…

Optimism can be surprisingly hilarious. In my last novel, two spouses agree to quit the planet once they’ve both turned…

Do you remember the Duke of Edinburgh awards? Some of you may even have one somewhere. An award for map-reading,…

What makes the Duke of Sussex believe he can lead a charge against practitioners of the written word, wonders Philip Hensher

The X-rated movies he’d seen by the age of ten included Deliverance, Taxi Driver and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – which he’d then discuss with his child psychologist

According to a new history of the Spanish Armada, Elizabeth I was chiefly to blame for the crisis of 1588

Despite the leader’s commitment to secularism and democracy, the persecution of Muslims and Dalits continued after independence

Giulia retreats to her isolated farmhouse to avoid bombardment in Turin, and grows increasingly attached to the partisan couple she shelters

The former Lord Chief Justice confesses that some of his liberal ideas didn’t turn out so well in practice

Hettie Judah describes how its various owners were plagued by bankruptcy, divorce, suicide, madness – and savaging by wild dogs

Steam trains, historic monuments and the family grocer were replaced by motorways, tower blocks and supermarkets. But at least there was humaner legislation

Unfairly dismissed as hucksters and fishwives, itinerant traders drove the capital’s expansion for centuries, says Charlie Taverner

Guy Shrubsole laments that the temperate rainforest that once covered a fifth of Britain has now shrunk to pitiful fragments on its western fringe

How long can a fugitive avoid detection after holing up in a city ‘big enough to be anonymous in’?

David Lloyd Dusenbury finds Jesus a ‘philosophically intriguing’ figure – and much bigger than a ‘mere’ revolutionary

January 6, the end of the twelve days of Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany when the three wise…

The National’s new comedy by April De Angelis is a clever and amusing attempt to deliver that most elusive artefact,…

Todd Field’s Tár stars an insanely glorious Cate Blanchett – if she doesn’t win an Oscar I’ll eat my hat…

There are various staples of still life painting, some symbolic, some not. Skulls and musical instruments suggest the transience of…

On 3 February 2003, the emergency services in Los Angeles received a call. ‘I’m Phil Spector’s driver,’ a voice told…

Tanya Gold talks to cult director Mark Jenkin about his ominous vision of Cornwall

Anyone reading this magazine for the first time, unaware of its dual citizenship, might easily form the impression that it…

For some time, the universities of the world have been at the forefront of cancel culture—trying to put woke  blinkers…

In Competition No. 3281, you were invited to provide 16 lines of cheerful welcome to 2023 in the metre of…

Recently Chinese 11-year-olds faced the following question in a maths exam. ‘If a ship has 26 sheep and ten goats…

I am occasionally teased. In a column devoted to drink, which in practice usually means wine and often the products…

Last week, the Office for National Statistics published the data on gender identity in England and Wales, as revealed in…

Like most people in racing I began 2023 down in the dumps, moaning about insufficient prize money, small fields and…

I remember my first day at South Benfleet County Primary School with rare clarity. My mother left me at the…