It’s twelve years and eleven months since a single graphic image punched us in the guts with such force. Then,…

The Quadrant dinner in Sydney was held in ‘a semi-secure, undisclosed location.’ Or so Roger Kimball, tongue-in-cheek, blogged back to…

My partner Billy and I are in Gondar, in north-eastern Ethiopia, a few bone-jarring hours’ drive from the Sudanese border.…

In ditching reforms to 18C, Tony Abbott has pandered to the Left whilst alienating the Right

Tony Abbott and Mike Baird must urgently grasp the lifeline John Howard has thrown them

The social media site’s relentless probing is beyond creepy

Bill Shorten plans to re-heat Ruddism

The ALP has a long history of support for Israel. As it should.

Bill Shorten plans to re-heat Ruddism

A successful military intervention isn't just possible; it's essential

No doubt the 'Islamic State' poses some danger. Direct western intervention will only make it more dangerous

The net is full of murder porn, self-righteously shared. So, increasingly, are newspapers. It’s time to take a stand

Everywhere I was struck by the fever of rebuilding and reconstruction

Middle England is screaming about lost entitlements – but quietly doing rather well

It’s like a church without the good bits. Membership starts from $85 a month

Now it's up to the churches to make sure that someone seizes the chance

If we want to defend genuinely groundbreaking and beneficial work, we need to think more seriously about how animals are used in education

No, I couldn't believe it, either

The problem isn't that our leaders go on holiday in August. It's the lack of strategy when they're on duty

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, resisted calls for Parliament to be recalled to debate the crisis in Iraq. Philip Hammond,…

Plus: Arctic escapes, and the long reach of Boris Johnson's fan club

Oh, and Alex Salmond, too

Plus: self-harm statistics, and accidental incest

From ‘The Call to Arms’, The Spectator, 15 August 1914: At this moment it is the duty of all employers,…

Debating Israel Sir: I want to respond to Alan Gold’s article ‘Betraying Israel for the Muslim Vote’ in the August…

If our parliamentarians complain about their pay, that's partly because of how expensive it is to join them

Just pretend for a moment that of, say, 200 anti-Semitic attacks in the UK, a study discovered that 198 of them had been committed by Methodists…

At Shakespeare in Love, I discovered more things I’ll never ever be able to do

Plus: The fate of Malaysia Airlines, and France’s sanctions mess

Jean Findlay's Chasing Lost Time throws new light on the remarkable life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff

A review of Abstraction and Reality: The Sculpture of Ivor Roberts-Jones, by Jonathan Black and Sara Ayres. This follower of Rodin has a solid legacy, though his most famous commission was 'a most unpleasant business'

He has done his subject justice. The final release for the reader is an almost physical relief

Andrew Self's The Birds of London is a thorough and entertaining history, but far too sympathetic to predators and bureaucrats

Jazz Me Blues is a memoir of a remarkable life by a man far too nice to do it justice

Ruth Rendell's The Girl Next Door is another quirky, satisfying mystery. But her fans have something else to celebrate

A review of Siberia: A History of the People, by Janet M. Hartley. The region's past is harrowing, but its potential is staggering

A review of Wounded Tiger: A History of Cricket in Pakistan, by Peter Oborne. Not even civil war stops play

Painting Death, the latest of Tim Parks's Maurice Duckworth novels, draws profitably on A Season with Verona

In The Answer to the Riddle is Me, David Stuart MacLean rediscovers who he is – and doesn't entirely like what he finds

A review of Beer: A Global History. Reading about it is second in pleasure only to drinking it

The wonders of Japan's Shinkansen are enough to make you look forward to HS2

Lloyd Evans recommends Julie Burchill: Absolute Cult, Phone Whore and Andrew O'Neill's History of Heavy Metal

That doesn't mean my teenage son will watch it with me, though

Two summer highlights at Eastbourne's Towner gallery

Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting, at the National Museum Wales, is a revealing look at an artist who inspired Turner and Constable

Alas, Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev have proved that bravery and bravura do not always go together

They founded it, after all: these productions of Charlotte Salomon and Der Rosenkavalier are no way to repay them

A new television insurgent has provided the most compelling coverage of Isis so far

The BBC's vital classical service has fallen behind 6 Music in the ratings, and we need to know when its new boss will arrive

Don't be fooled by the bear on the poster – this survey of modern figurative sculpture features rotting corpses, animal guts and live bees

Popes come and popes go but generally not after only 33 days; which is what happened to Albino Luciani, elected…

This is what the EU has done to Greece: forced us to flog the few assets nature gave us

It's enough to make you lose control of your North Devon Gazette

Not for us the hot-headed transience of married folk...

Call it a 'break'. A 'period of repose'. Anything but hint you're having fun

Some bridge hands are so sad that they make you want to cry. At least, that’s how my friend Lou…

The Tromsø Olympiad finishes on Thursday 14 August, too late for any definitive conclusions to be drawn here as to…

White to play. This is from Kasimdzhanov–Kramnik, Tromsø Olympiad 2014. How did White blast through? Answers to me at The…

In Competition No. 2860 you were invited to submit a short ode on the death of a pet in unusual…

Across unclued lights combine with down ones to form anagrams of the titles (one of two words) of four works…

Gerry Goffin, popular LYRICIST (40), died on 19 June 2014. He wrote the perimetric songs IT MIGHT AS WELL RAIN…

It’s one thing to make these sacrifices if the public hold you in high esteem – quite another if they think you’re a crook

You can’t just have people round for a pie and booze now; you have to mess about with ramekins. Thanks for nothing, Delia

And what do you say when offered a lift in a terrifying old banger?

The medics were pumping me full of antibiotics. I was determined to co-operate. But there’s no rule against reading…

Yes, this is an Americanism – but it hardly blew in yesterday