Travelling across the Mojave desert in the mid-1800s in search of the Promised Land, a group of Mormons were mesmerised…

Renewables & China’s takeover of our electricity grid As China expands its influence globally under the Belt and Road program,…

Big government bounces back Despite its spending spree in the Budget, the federal government would do well to remember that…

We have the wherewithal to defeat the Chinese threat

Let’s sool the Human Rights Commissions onto the Woke

How to combat corporate activism

There is scant evidence the subsidies do what is claimed

Gentlemen, start your helicopter engines...

WHO’s to blame for the disaster in India?

It’s Dylan’s 80th birthday

Far worse than appeasement

The numbers of the dear old mountain hare in England are becoming perilously depleted. A researcher, Carlos Bedson, has suggested…

In the wake of a pandemic, why is the C of E obsessing about statues?

Jerusalem Thomas Friedman has a lot to answer for. The New York Times’s oracle has ruined, through overuse in his…

Britain must investigate its Islamist ‘dawa’ networks

Will Boris Johnson call Nicola Sturgeon’s bluff?

It’s the hugs vs the hug-nots

Michael Lewis on the scientists who saw Covid coming – and were ignored

The rules of post-lockdown conversation

There’s nothing unjust about selling the family house to pay for care

China has peaked Sir: Niall Ferguson makes some good points about the nature of Xi Jinping’s imperial aspirations but misses…

Home A new complexion of British politics was revealed by the capture of Hartlepool by Jill Mortimer for the Conservatives…

‘Georgics’ are an ancient form of poetry about agriculture and the land. The term derives from Greek gê ‘land’ +…

While the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has no formal role in devising the bloc’s immigration policy, his…

What would happen to the Republicans after Donald Trump? That has been one of the pundits’ favourite themes in the…

At Redwall Abbey Does fiction provide any guide as to the ultimate fate of Labour’s Red Wall? — Redwall Abbey…

This week, the Church of England issued its document ‘Contested Heritage in Cathedrals and Churches’. It is guidance for what…

Towards the end of April, my mum sent me a letter. She doesn’t write as a rule — we speak…

‘Consider a temporary cut in executive salaries’ was the Confederation of British Industry’s advice to members at the start of…

The headline ‘Government to allow people to hug’ one might have expected to hear on early evening news bulletins in…

Keir Starmer has turned a drama into a crisis. The local elections were always going to be difficult for Labour.…

I can’t seem to find the Oracle of Delphi’s complete works. The libraries remain shut and when I go to…

Alex Burghart describes England’s fitful development from a collection of warring kingdoms into a highly centralised state

The most extraordinary thing, still, about Operation Barbarossa is the complete surprise the Wehrmacht achieved. In the early hours of…

Shakespeare’s first biographer was the gossipy antiquarian John Aubrey, who famously described the playwright as ‘not a company keeper’. It…

‘Something is afoot,’ wrote the academic philosopher Kathleen Stock in 2018: Beyond the academy, there’s a huge and impassioned discussion…

Certain novels complicate the very notion of literary enjoyment. This, by the author of the international bestseller The Yacoubian Building,…

Lisa McInerney likes the rule of three. Three novels set in Cork structured around sex, drugs and rock’n’roll and, within…

For his 15th novel, the espionage writer Alan Judd turns his hand to the mystery of Christopher Marlowe’s death. The…

‘They’ll slowly undress us first and then kill us, so our clothes won’t get bloody and our banknotes won’t get…

New York in a nutshell? No way. New York in a New York minute? Forget about it. The city contains…

Deep in Peru’s Amazon rainforest sits a desolate zone, stretching for miles and pockmarked with chemical-tainted water that glistens orange…

In his excellent, brief chronicle of foie gras, Norman Kolpas lists Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, Thandie Newton, Ricky Gervais and…

‘To see a world in a grain of sand’, to attain the mystical perception that Blake advocated, requires a concentrated,…

If you wanted a college at the University of Melbourne that had no hint of imitation Oxbridge you would turn…

As news came through of China’s suspension of high-level trade dialogue with Australia, I read The Truth About China by…

Over the decades, Van Morrison’s role within the tower of song has shifted from chief visionary officer to head of…

When this whole mess is over, there’ll be a shortish MA thesis — or at least a blog post —…

Manet’s ‘Botte d’asperges’ are probably the most famous asparagus in the world. The artist painted the delicious white- and lilac-tinged…

A new work by Alan Bennett features in Still Life, a medley of five ‘untold stories’ from Nottingham Playhouse. The…

Some Kind of Heaven is a documentary set in The Villages, Florida, which is often described as a ‘Disneyland for…

I’d been expecting the BBC to make a dreadful hash of The Pursuit of Love, especially when I read that…

Michael Hann talks to St Vincent about Sheena Easton, Stalin and performing in five-inch heels

A recent jaunt through the NSW South Coast town of Bermagui sparked a friendly family rivalry over whose forebears had…

There is an organisation called ‘Dying with Dignity’. In their most recent newsletter they say, ‘The NSW Parliament looks set…

Q. I’ve recently been approached by a very good friend who — with genuinely admirable candour and tact — pointed…

You cannot have cars and dining tables in the same dreamscape: it doesn’t work, unless you think carbon monoxide is…

An item on the BBC news site didn’t mean what it said: ‘The latest move is part of a wider…

Thank heavens the Champions League final is being played in Portugal, now Turkey’s off the menu (sorry). It will certainly…

Some 114,201 ballots were rejected in the first round of the London mayoral election, approximately 5 per cent of the…

Combing through race recordings to try to find some fun horses for Spectator readers this summer, I have been struck…

I’m not surprised so many scientific studies have shown that bridge staves off dementia: the game provides a constant workout…

The rule of thumb for weighing up piece exchanges says that pawns are worth one, knights and bishops three, rooks…

White to play, Jones–Dominguez, New in Chess Classic, April 2021. Gawain Jones was hoping that his rook and pawn would…

In Competition No. 3198, you were invited to supply an extract from a children’s book that is designed to explain…

New York Orthodox Easter Sunday came late in May this year, and I spent it at an old friend’s Fifth…

Sally (la Sal, the Salster) is part whippet, part Labrador and part dormouse. She is 16 years old, stone deaf,…

Ten unclued lights (including four pairs) are of a kind. Ignore two hyphens and an apostrophe. What could have induced…

The traditional county towns were Chester (misprinted as CHEATER: 27), Durham (DERHAM: 21), Derby (DERRY: 32), Lewes (LENES: 36), Reading…

An angry text exchange between me and a former Tory councillor after she lost her seat has got me thinking.…