One of John Howard’s greatest strengths (among the very many) was his ability to hold together the various fragments (we…

In an occasional self-deprecatory moment the late Sir John Kerr liked to tell the story of his visit to London…

The final sitting week of parliament before Christmas is, well, very Christmassy. Drinks, lunches and dinners are happening everywhere. Meanwhile,…

An unusual creature has landed at Oahu

One year on, the terrorists have won

The moral relativism of the ABC has sunk to new lows - but with one or two journalists there is some hope

Feminists have been looking for a cause for decades, yet are silent on the most vile female oppression of them all

Why do we ignore the profoundly Western cultural and Christian roots of the biggest icon in global popular culture?

It worked in Scotland, so ‘Project Fear’ will be deployed again to persuade Britain to stay in Europe

Stockholm police were warned not to give descriptions of the perpetrators lest they were accused of being racist

Keynesian deficit spending makes sense – but over and over again it has not worked

Can no one save the centre-right from this bombastic, populist, nationalist billionaire?

It’s a brave person who dares take on the drunken Mileses and Gileses and Violets running amok in the new student ghettoes

As the founder of 256 schools, Seema Aziz has transformed the lives of millions. So why does the West ignore her story?

…but you can get there first

Workers in Britain’s unreformed NHS are among the very few who can still hold the public to ransom

And David Bowie dies at 69, shadow cabinet members resign, food aid is taken to Madaya, and El Chapo is captured

Plus: Crewkerne station and the Mumbai call centre; hipsters should relocate to The Potteries; 500 years since More’s Utopia

Jihadi warriors boast that they don’t fear death... but what when the money to pay them runs out?

The Spectator’s stance on conscription, January 1916

Plus: Before virtue signalling, and the art of discreet belching

Also: There should be an advice booklet for those taking up public sector appointments

It wasn’t being a chameleon or sexual revolutionary that made him important, but his brilliant songs

The machines are taking over the world and we will be standing idly by

The BBC’s Chris Packham should read the great amateur naturalist’s books and learn a few things

Plus: It must be decades since I bought underwear at Marks & Spencer — but for a car picnic they can’t be beaten

Mei Fong’s haunting One Child explains the very serious unforeseen consequences of ‘China’s most radical experiment’

Or so David Wootton seems to suggest, in a giant treatise celebrating the 17th century’s other glorious revolution

Alaa Al Aswany’s latest colourful saga of Cairo life is also an important social satire on modern Egypt

Andy Martin describes the many months he spent observing Lee Child — fuelled by coffee and Camels — complete his 20th Reacher novel

David Aaronovitch’s family memoir reminds Alan Johnson that — thanks to the Labour party — communism failed to capture British hearts and minds

Michael Hodges’s colourful guide is a welcome reminder of the sheer scale and number of churches that survived the Blitz

The previously unpublished Pure Juliet will be cold comfort for fans of Gibbons’s famous first novel

Even Nick Foulkes’s eloquent pleading can’t turn this shallow master of self-promotion into Picasso’s rival — as he saw himself

If Calvin Trillin’s middle-aged Manhattanite, obsessed with his parking space, appeals to British readers, that would be a story in itself

Rose Prince wishes she’d benefited from Bee Wilson’s advice when trying to get her own children to eat their greens

For anyone looking for a stimulating read this summer, one that bestows a certain sense of rationality on our otherwise…

But as this new exhibition at the Royal College of Physicians shows, he was much more than just a loony witch

Boulez est mort. The composer-conductor will be remembered above all as a propagandist, a breed for whom long life is not predicted

But the equally cutting-edge show at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery from New Zealander Simon Denny seems hamstrung by its medium

Simon Rattle’s conducting was immaculate, Peter Sellars’s directing wasn’t as irritating as feared and what a cast!

By withdrawing from the public gaze, Bowie ensured that his legacy would be his extraordinary records

Whether you enjoy this film will essentially depend on how strong your stomach is and how much you’re into watching Leonardo DiCaprio grunting for two-and-a-half hours

Plus: a play at the Arcola that accepts the bizarre notion that every setback suffered by asylum-seekers is an indelible stain on Britain’s moral integrity

Plus: while it’s good to see Carlos Acosta looking sexy and charismatic again, Royal Ballet’s Elizabeth needs help from Bridget Jones on their portrayal of a woman in love

Plus: two great moments on Desert Island Discs and the resurrection of an early masterclass from Tom Stoppard

Derren Brown closed the programme by telling us not to do what other people tell us - except, presumably when it’s him telling us not to do what other people tell us

An unlikely location for a theatre; the large pre-fab hall, in which I sat for my final exams at UNSW,…

Tolstoy wrote about all happy ones being alike, but what would he have said about the ugly ones?

Whether this disturbed his mind no one can say with any certainty, but disturbed it was

A road resurfacer will trump a middle-class woman every time (unless she is a lesbian adopter)

What is it that draws a genuine Hollywood legend to Milton Keynes Theatre?

It made me aware of our fragility and need for each other’s protection — and our helplessness

Forgive me for the outdated, clichéd expression but …GIRL POWER! The surprise winners of last weekend’s TGRs auction pairs were…

An excellent recent article by Dominic Lawson in Standpoint magazine reminded me of the greatness of Paul Keres. The Estonian…

White to play. This is from Fischer-Benko, US Championship, New York 1963. The obvious 1 e5 is successfully parried by 1…

In Competition No. 2930 you were invited to submit up to 16 lines of macaronic verse. A dictionary of poetic…

Last year we lost a popular 39 of stage and screen. 18A/16 (four words in total) and 10/18A/15 (five words…

The grid quotation was from the JOURNEY OF THE MAGI (T S ELIOT). Initial letters of superfluous words spelled out…

How neuro­biologist Dr Adam Perkins became a victim of the new McCarthyism

With humanity’s love of collective consensus, reputation can often count for more than reality

Plus: On meeting a handsome stranger at a funeral

No more succulent goose was eaten in all England on Christmas Day

How a word given a new meaning by J.R.R. Tolkien made it into the Oxford English Dictionary