In 1969, Canadian academic Laurence Peter defined what came to be known as the Peter Principle: a person in an…

Gulag survivor and author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that one of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming totalitarianism can’t…

On our High Court coin tossers

Charter, what Charter?

Does Hello Big Spenders mean Farewell Fiscal Discipline? But will the private sector deliver? In line with classic Liberal party…

When will governments learn that lockdowns don’t work?

It’s only taken a hundred and one years to correct one scribbled note

Australia’s federal budget sends a signal

Constitutionalise the Pub Test

The etiquette of ending an email

Students who catch Covid may be saving lives by building up immunity

For the first time in 30-odd years, many Brits have started eating winkles again. Unable to holiday abroad this summer,…

Only a ‘good’ Brexit can stop Scottish independence

Americans don’t seem to care that Biden is past it – they want Trump gone

Why I’m voting for Biden

The President has drawn up the battle lines – now he needs to fight

Charities for young people are in deep trouble

Home ‘The weeks and months ahead will continue to be difficult and will test the mettle of this country,’ Boris…

The weird thing about Donald Trump’s handling of Covid-19, alongside all the other weird things, is that he has always…

Red light, green light The three tiers of Covid restrictions have been described as a ‘traffic light’ system. — The…

When the Black Lives Matter protests struck London in the same week that Public Health England published a report into…

A spokeswoman has been appointed ‘to communicate with the nation on behalf of the Prime Minister’. He apparently needs ‘a…

Wind worries Sir: You are right to side with the 2013 version of Boris Johnson, when he claimed that wind…

The Bank of England has told commercial banks to prepare for the possibility of negative interest rates. This last hypothetical…

Boris Johnson used to be defined by his commitment to having his cake and eating it. But now he isn’t…

It started with smoking. The 1960s and 1970s saw little popular objection to legislation restricting advertisements by private companies purveying…

In this column (26 September), I pointed out that the National Trust’s new ‘Gazetteer’ of its 93 properties linked with…

An idea gains ground that we shouldn’t go abroad any more: that the very act of travelling without urgent reason…

The news that residents of Liverpool are not allowed to visit any other cities in the UK is a hammer…

Being the son of the revered John Olsen has often been intriguing, and sometimes difficult. Olsen, 92, is arguably Australia’s…

What Are You Going Through is both brilliant and mercifully brief. Weighing in at 200-odd pages, it can be read…

Many books claim to describe junctures that changed the world but few examine ones as consequential as Conquistadores: A New…

Some of my happiest fiction-reading hours have been spent in the company of Kevin Barry: two short-story collections, both prize-winners,…

In his latest book, the veteran pop commentator David Hepworth is concerned with satisfaction, its acquisition and maintenance. On record,…

Closely inspect No. 23 Leinster Terrace, Bayswater and you might notice the house has no letter box. Push at the…

From Downing Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, history’s powerful inter-family influencers, whether spouses or children, have long operated behind weighty political…

Even if you didn’t have an Auntie Dot in Cockermouth (the one who ate a raffia drinks coaster, mistaking it…

The brilliance of GCHQ can now be recognised – and about time too, says Sinclair McKay

During the Spanish civil war of 1936 to 1939, 35,000 men and women from around the world volunteered to fight…

By my reckoning, this is the 24th outing for John Rebus, Scotland’s best known retired police officer. One of the…

Far be it from me to utter a word against the patron saint of Dublin pubs, Roddy Doyle. Granted he’s…

Twenty-five years after making Spartacus, a parable of Roman decadence and rebellious slaves shot in California, Stanley Kubrick made Full…

In the world of the arts, some things keep on even in this time of impossibility which the virus has…

There has been a fair bit of bleating from sectors claiming to have been ignored in the Budget; in fact…

Nineteen fifty-six: the Suez crisis, the first Tesco, Jim Laker takes 19 wickets in a match. But also: Trinidadian pianist…

In 1772 the 15-year-old Mozart wrote a one-act opera set, like The Magic Flute, in a dream world. Il sogno…

If you love Fauda — and of course you do — you’re in for a long wait for season four,…

Squatting, gutting and retrofitting – and a lesson from India: Stuart Jeffries looks at the future of British architecture

Mothballed since March when it danced a farewell Swan Lake, the Royal Ballet made a triumphant and joyous return to…

Rebecca is a new adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s gothic, twisted, never-out-of-print tale of sexual jealousy. It’s directed by Ben…

Offenbach at Glyndebourne! Short of Die Soldaten with a picnic break or a period-instrument revival of Jerry Springer: The Opera,…

Southwark Playhouse has revived an American show, The Last Five Years, whose run was cancelled in March. In advance, I…

Simon Collins I have been wondering what whale tastes like. There must be quite a few Australians who know. After…

New York New York, New York, once a wonderful town/ The people are crap and the mayor’s a clown/ The…

‘I can’t put it off any longer. She’s dying and I don’t think I can ignore the inevitable. We’ve got…

‘Yes, I will have a coffee,’ said the van driver. He’d driven down to the south of France from Devon.…

Q. A year ago we sent out 150 save-the-date notices for our wedding this December. We are still going ahead,…

You probably haven’t heard of the Great Barrington Declaration. This is a petition started by three scientists on 4 October…

I had known Perry Worsthorne for several years before I went to work for him in 1986 (horrifying how time…

‘Everyone’s been very kind to my husband and I,’ said someone behind me in a (spaced) queue. That is the…

The Covid problem lies as much in the delayed action of the virus as in the virus itself. Since symptoms…

Fortunately for me and the politicians we entertained over my years covering the darkest profession, Mrs Oakley didn’t do a…

‘I have a wonderful hand to show you,’ Gunnar Hallberg exclaimed when I saw him last week. Gunnar is a…

We are what we do. Alas, in its zeal to suppress the virus, this government would have many people doing…

Rapport–Sprenger, Bundesliga, September 2020. The game continued 1 Bxc4 Rxc4 2 Bxe5+ f6 3 Bf4 Rxe4+ 4 Kf3 and was…

The unclued lights (one of two words and one hyphened) are of a kind, verifiable in Brewer. Across 10 United…

The unclued lights form pairs of famous soloists and the instruments they play; 1A/19, 5/34, 23/8, 31/39, 43/16A. First prize…

In Competition No. 3170, a challenge inspired by Shelley’s assertion that ‘poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world’, you…