In his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King wrote: ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’ This has…

I seem to be the only person in this country who is not cock-a-hoop about the lavish government package to…

What a difference a few months makes. At the close of last year, all the talk in the United Kingdom…

The Covid-19 crisis has exposed the fraudulent elites - yet again

The PM needs to listen to other voices. And quickly

A serial thriller-writer stalks the streets of LA

Coronavirus and autism have surprising similarities

Cutting bank dividends - what for?

The National Cabinet is no ‘wartime high command’

Picture the world before the invention of the bottle: if you wanted a nice glass of claret at home, you’d…

We’re not all in this together

I write this on Easter Sunday, sitting comfortably at home, recovering from my brush with Covid-19. I was hospitalised for…

Domestic abuse sufferers are the hidden victims of lockdown

Who will win?

Bill Bryson on writing, loss and the wonders of the human body

How to scale a mountain without leaving home

It’s business as usual for drug traffickers

The United States has long regarded itself as better prepared for a pandemic than any other country in the world,…

Covid-19 has not yet reached its peak but already the moguls of the small screen are plotting how to monetise,…

Divine works Sir: Luke Coppen writes that livestreamed services ‘lack the vital communal dimension of worship’ and ‘are, at times,…

TV quizzes An ITV drama told the story of Major Charles Ingram, who was convicted of cheating in the gameshow…

Home The number of people with the coronavirus disease Covid-19 who had died in hospitals by the beginning of the…

When two members of my family went down with what appears to be Covid-19, I felt concerned. What I hadn’t…

Politics is full of events that are meant to change everything but actually do little. Yet the coronavirus crisis will…

There must be a quote from Shakespeare for this, but so far I haven’t found it. It’s the way we…

When I wrote last week about business-to-business pain-sharing for survival, I was naturally thinking first about UK companies. I say…

We know, because of the lack of widespread testing, that incidences of Covid-19 are under-reported. What is less well known…

From time to time, usually when things are quiet, the government brings on the dancing girls. David Cameron made Carol…

I am a type. I don’t like groups. I maintain few memberships. I question and resist authority, especially enforcement of…

Filthy germ-laden townsfolk were out and about on the footpaths near my home on Easter Sunday, dragging with them their…

One of life’s perennial questions is what would the world look like if it was ruled by women. It’s an…

I doubt whether any book would entice me more than a horrible hybrid of crimefiction, speculative fantasy, weird religion and…

‘Beauty is pain,’ the model Gigi Hadid asserts. She’s one of the successful, rich people quizzed by William Leith in…

Geography can be history and history geography — and sometimes the most obvious things are overlooked. Laurence C. Smith’s Rivers…

Michael Arditti has never held back from difficult or unfashionable subjects. His dozen novels, including the prize-winning Easter, as well…

‘You’re never alone with a Strand,’ went the misbegotten advertisement for a new cigarette in 1959. What the copywriter didn’t…

Until fairly recently, all over the western world there were specialised eating places catering largely for Jews who respected the…

We often hear that science fiction — or ‘speculative’ fiction, as the buffs prefer — can draw premonitory outlines of…

In 1926, while putting in place the repressive laws and decrees that would define his dictatorship, Mussolini appointed a new…

How refreshing in a time of general sensitivity to find a book intended to infuriate and debunk. Welcome to the…

Philip Hensher describes how Paris became a magnet for literary-minded lesbians in the early 20th century – where they soon caused quite a stir

He coined the phrase ‘tyranny of distance’ which not only entered the language but encapsulated the view that many Australians…

Many performers hated playing live. But freed from the stage they often made their best and wildest work, argues Graeme Thomson

High Tide got there first. The East Anglian theatre company has produced a series of lockdown mini-dramas, Love in the…

Imagine rooting for the Australian cricket team. If you’re Scottish, Welsh or Irish — or Australian obviously — it might…

Hud is a film that has haunted me for decades. I was never sure why. It seemed to be something…

Last month, just before coronavirus conquered the airwaves entirely, millions of Americans gave up two hours to hear a professor…

It’s 1771, you’re in Milan, and your 14-year-old genius son has just premièred his new opera. How do you reward…

Whee-ooh-whee ya-ya-yang skrittle-skrittle skreeeek… Is it a space pod bearing aliens from Mars? No, it’s a podcast featuring aliens from…

I cannot remember a prettier Easter, or a more frustrating one. This was no time to be in town. But…

Black to play. Andrew Stone–Martin Jogstad, 4NCL Online, April 2020. The queen is trapped on f4, so 1…Rxg5 looks worth…

My husband left a copy of The Spectator open on the table by his chair, next to the little cardboard…

Alexandre DUMAS père wrote The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, whose eponymous characters were Athos, Porthos, Aramis…

In Competition No. 3144 you were invited to submit a poem, six lines at most, containing all the letters of…

Once we’ve flattened the curve of infection with mass self-isolation, the next debate will concern how to soften the restrictions…

Q. Each day while working from home, I have at least one hour-long meeting via Zoom. One of my colleagues…

Sport may well be ‘the great triviality’ as Timeform founder Phil Bull once put it, and racing as trivial as…

While chatting on the phone to my friend Alex Hydes a couple of weeks ago, I asked whether he was…

In a cave once used as a stable and now abandoned, I found a wooden crate containing a dozen tiny…

Since the beginning of the lockdown, Caroline has been congratulating herself for having bought a puppy ‘just in time’. She…

Gstaad So the days — and months — drift by. This once peaceful Alpine town is packed with rich refugees…

The toad who lives at the bottom of the garden in the pile of bricks beneath the potting table was…

Unclued lights, five of two words and two pairs, have something in common. Elsewhere, ignore one accent. Across 1 Keep…

‘Old wine in new bottles’ must be the most protean idiom in the English language. I encountered it a few…