I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, ‘Will he really go to a double dissolution?’ Now to tell you the…

Last Monday I watched Bill Shorten’s press conference with the Canberra press gallery, covered lovingly in every excruciating detail by…

The cheers of 180 celebrants (at $290 a head) echoed across the moonlit harbour from Pinchgut Island to the Opera…

As it ticked over midnight and into my wife’s birthday, I crossed to Paul Murray Live on Sky News from…

The headline in The Mail on Sunday conveys a sense of stepping back in time on arrival at Gatwick: ‘Ed…

A warning to the NSW Liberals: reform or die

Stop the reckless and feckless profiting at the expense of the more prudent who subsidise their follies

Don't panic! The scientific consensus is that warmer temperatures do more good than harm

He didn't hate Britain, but he did want it to be Communist

Foreskin-envying hippies and Eurocrats are waging war against an age-old tradition, under the guise of 'human rights'

I blame the Prime Minister for the rise of the manly embrace

The ex-leader of the English Defence League on politicians, police, the press — and beheading threats

Just because the author is understated doesn't mean she's overrated

There’s a myth in the Spectator office, which I’ve never discouraged, that I’m Yorkshire’s answer to Franz Klammer — a…

Trade missions are useless, Osborne - just let businessmen get on with their job

Home Shares in Royal Mail, floated on the stock market at 330p, began trading at 475p. SSE, the energy supplier,…

I will sort out the failures in education policy — as soon as I stop staring at Cameron's red face

Flagging interest; green fees; what you own of the nation

A new book about Colonel Gaddafi goes into shocking detail about his monstrous sexual appetites. He used rape as a…

A fat lot of good Sir: Max Pemberton is right that obesity is a terrible problem in western society (‘The…

Education and tax policy may be on the table — along with state funding of political parties

The last thing our gargantuan, slobbering masses need is for self-serving charities to indulge them

Piers Paul Read did not make a good case for miracles. Let me do it for him

Plus: The Daily Mail's journalistic code of honour vs Leveson's

Stop concocting debt-ceiling crises to imitate the cliffhangers of screen fantasy

Evil figures may lurk in your arty Christmas cards, as Alexander Lee's The Ugly Renaissance shows

Patrick Barkham tries badger stir-fry and weighs the culling debate in Badgerlands

Reading keeps you young, suggests Penelope Lively in Ammonites & Leaping Fish

Just how many names does David Plante drop in his diary, Becoming a Londoner?

Ian Buruma's Year Zero remembers the generation that rose from the ashes of world war two

Bridget Jones in Mad About the Boy is unrecognisable — and why is she weighing herself in pounds, not stones?

Marc Allum's The Antiques Magpie looks at French forks, poison dresses and Lord Ashcroft's VC hoard

Shirley Williams had the best of intentions for schools, according to Mark Peel's admiring biography

Usain Bolt has one critical physical advantage, says the pacy memoir Fast as Lightning

Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash rose to fame on sheer hard work — only to become a hippie

Ben Schott's Schottenfreude looks at German's Lego-like capacity. What's the longest word you can build?

Brian Sewell, who has owned 17 canines, tells of his strange habits in Sleeping with Dogs

There's a long tradition of media turncoats, shows Stewart Purvis and Jeff Hulbert in When Reporters Cross the Line

The unflappable David Gower reveals he once jumped on fellow batsman Geoffrey Boycott's hat in An Endangered Species

Apparently, Ellis believes that the year 2011 was as important as 1848. He never explains why, exactly. He seems to…

My accident-prone journey from Evita to From Here to Eternity

Radio 4's controller Gwyneth Williams has big plans for arts coverage, and is jealous of Radio 2

Plus: Comparing Rembrandt and Auerbach brings rich rewards

The Met made Tchaikovsky's famous Letter Scene too long, and Tatiana looked like she would fall asleep

One thing Ted Heath never had to confront was unbelievably bigoted, bullying colleagues

If the actor doesn't win an Oscar for Captain Phillips, I'll eat your hat

The comedy thriller is like watching Bond smash his car into a David Brent strategy meeting — but it works

New presenter Mishal Husain tackled Theresa May with soft determination

The exhibition The Renaissance and Dream at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris (until 26 January 2014) explores how artists…

We've had fantastic reviews, but don't blink or you'll miss yours truly

'Do you want to live or do you want to die?' It was indeed a great question

Can banks just drop all the 'pleasantries' when you call them?

Italians may have suffered from so many sources during the war, they don't hold Germans responsible

The beautiful port of Barawe became a base for the vicious foreign fighters known as the 'muhajireen'

The season got off to a very bad start for my team — and continues in much the same vein.…

Andrew Paulson, an American who lives in London, has been responsible for a remarkable chess revolution over the past year.…

White to play. This position is from Goganov-Motylev, Russian Championship, Novgorod 2013. Black has just captured on d5 with his…

In Competition 2819 you were invited to write a poem either in free verse mocking rhymed, metrical verse or in…

The unclued lights are of a kind.   Across   1    Remains close to the co-founder of the Townswomen’s…

The unclued lights, when paired 12/20, 16/33, 25/29, 31/6, 42/2, are RICOCHET or reduplicated words.   First prize Mrs Rhiannon…

I could be dealing with my decay and depression by focussing on my children

Playing for England depends on who you are, where you learned your sport — and how you sound

Dealing with lost thank-you letters and Quattro Stagione deliveries

Union Street Cafe isn't a bit like Manhattan — it's more like Penge

Context can be important — as is the case for the C-word