These are tumultuous times for the Royal Family. No one was surprised when Meghan Markle, a former TV actress from…

‘Dr Martin Luther King didn’t say “I have a nightmare,”’ is the opening line of a letter the IPA recently…

The decision that the Morrison government seems to have taken to appoint a royal commission into the bush fires is…

Sacha Baron Cohen’s recent anti-defamation league speech was quite a performance, even by his standards. In shrill, bordering on hysterical…

Whenever something adverse  happens these days, the event will more likely than not be attributed to,  or associated with, the…

Do you remember the shocking scientific study about how baby fish in our polluted oceans now actually prefer eating plastic…

The near hysterical insistence by green groups that Australia’s undoubtedly very bad bushfire season is the result of man-made climate…

If there were an academy award for the most histrionic response to Australia’s bushfires, it would be hard to go…

Have you noticed how chaotic and wasteful eucalypts are? They have branches that grow in all directions and lengths and…

I am not a psychiatrist, but I’ve observed a kind of psychosis in far-left activists of the West who claim…

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it…

The crisis that has engulfed the royal family, sparked by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s bombshell announcement that they…

Three years ago, Sir Christopher Geidt departed as the Queen’s private secretary. For years, he had done much to hold…

The 1960s were swinging. The 1970s were stagflationary. In the 1980s we made loadsamoney and greed was good. The 1990s…

Back in October, Boris Johnson and the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar met for ‘last-ditch’ Brexit talks at a hotel on the…

White House Farm began last week on ITV; a six-part factual drama about the notorious murders. I play Sheila Caffell,…

Daniel Hannan Roger Scruton changed the course of my life. He addressed my school’s philosophy society when I was 16,…

When I told friends that I would be spending Christmas Day helping the homeless at a Crisis at Christmas centre…

Don’t worry, this isn’t a piece about fishing quotas. It’s about the word ‘mackerel’ itself. Specifically, the fact that St…

When fossil fuel divestment was merely a gesture by universities, the Church of England and the Prince of Wales it…

Home The Queen agreed to ‘a period of transition’ during which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would spend time…

Washington, D.C. On 8 January, I tweeted about the Sussex-Markles: ‘Obviously the plan is to return to Canada, lead a…

Royal flush The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have registered the trademark ‘Sussex Royal’ as part of their plan to…

The candidates battling for the leadership of the Labour party never stop banging on about ‘social justice’ and ‘equality’. But…

On child care Sir: Your recent editorial deplores, among other things, the cost of child care, to which you attribute…

Earlier this week, we accompanied our daughter-in-law, Hannah, to her British citizenship ceremony, she having passed the necessary tests. (Hannah…

Prime ministers are never more powerful than just before a cabinet reshuffle. Ministers fall over themselves to be helpful, hoping…

There is a fascinating social media group which I think we should all join. It is called ‘DeMOCKracy — 2019…

More and more of us are staying home for our holidays — but even so, our small hotels and B&Bs…

Just before Christmas our cat Runty died and I wasn’t in any rush to find a replacement. I like cats…

Asked to name British institutions they’d rather not see shaken to the foundations, many consumers would list the John Lewis…

Since Robert Lowell’s sudden death in 1977 his critical reputation has suffered from the usual post-mortem slump. Interest in Lowell’s…

‘I consist of the shards into which the Republic of Kolyma shattered me,’ Varlam Shalamov once told a fellow gulag…

Unlike a lot of people in the media, I didn’t personally know Deborah Orr, but I know many who did,…

The presiding genius of this original and erudite book is undoubtedly Virginia Woolf, whose essay ‘A Room of One’s Own’…

Andrew Lambirth claims that Bryan Robertson was ‘the greatest director the Tate Gallery never had’; but on the evidence of…

Look up at the sky on a clear night. This is not an astrological game. (Indeed, the experiment’s more impressive…

‘To live and die without knowing the psychedelic experience,’ says the narrator of Threshold, ‘is comparable to never having encountered…

Tsitsi Dangarembga’s arresting Nervous Conditions appeared in 1988 and was the first novel published in English by a black Zimbabwean…

A distinctive pattern of horizontal and vertical lines appears in the background of many of Eadweard Muybridge’s best-known photographs, giving…

Jonathon Green is a tosher. As a lexicographer he dives into archives and emerges with armfuls of slangy curios, such…

In November last year, an internet video made by a 17-year-old American went viral. The video was less than a…

In the summer of 1878 Johannes Brahms finally succeeded in growing a beard. It was his third attempt. ‘Prepare your…

Victoria, a single mother in her early thirties, is getting her children ready for school — ensuring an equitable distribution…

Like Elton John, though less ravaged, Tutankhamun’s treasures are on their final world tour. Soon these 150 artefacts will return…

The Duchess of Malfi is one of those classics that everyone knows by name but not many have witnessed on…

Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life is a historical drama based on the true story of Franz Jäggerstätter, an Austrian who…

We talk about it a lot. One of life’s most essential elements it is now being celebrated in an exhibition:…

Gstaad I’ve been hitting the books rather hard lately, the ritzy-glitzy crowd having gone the way of natural snow. There’s…

Last night I watched a boxed set. Parade’s End is a small box set as box sets go, and quite…

My tech guy Andy appeared on the doorstep in a puff of smoke. I had just texted him to ask…

Addis Ababa airport   This morning I caught a connecting flight via Addis Ababa’s Bole airport. For me this place…

2019 was a big year for Alex Hydes. HUGE in fact. He won, almost consecutively, three major international titles and…

As backhanded Christmas gifts go, a copy of 12 Rules for Life, must be up there with wrinkle cream or a…

Sanguineti–Najdorf, Mar del Plata 1956. White to move. White played 1 Kd8?, to threaten 2 Qe7#. Black resigned, overlooking 1…Rxg4…

In Competition No. 3131 you were invited to submit a poem beginning ‘Yes. I remember…’ This challenge was suggested by…

The unclued lights (as four pairs and a singleton which includes an abbreviation and apostrophe) are of a kind. 36…

The Journey of the Magi (38A and 39A), by T.S. Eliot, was based on an earlier sermon by Lancelot Andrewes,…

As 31 January looms, I’ve been thinking about how to bring the country back together again after we’ve left the…

Anyone still vaguely tempted to subscribe to that lazy and stupid cliché about footballers just being overpaid idiots should have…

Q. My husband and I are committed Brexiteers. For many years we have regularly enjoyed friendly bridge evenings with a…

Julie’s is a 50-year-old restaurant in Holland Park, London, newly emerged from three years of closure as plushly renovated as…

When an MP announced she was pansexual I didn’t know what she meant. Indeed I didn’t know what she could…