Unless the Senate does something spectacular – and God knows it likes to make a spectacle of itself – the…

A new authoritarianism has descended. There now seems to be a list of official beliefs we are allowed to hold…

The New Atheists – clever, uncompromising, polite – seized the initiative only a few years ago, at least in publishing.…

Unrelenting school lobby   ‘Needs based [school] funding is used as a proxy for arguments for more funding.’ Indeed it…

Crosses may have huge symbolic significance for Christians but the physical reality of crucifixion is something most of us only…

One of the advantages of filling a casual vacancy in the Senate is the short lead time between being chosen…

Private notes confirm Malcolm Fraser’s anguish over condemning his Prime Minister to the scrap heap

The Prime Minister offers a glimpse of conservative leanings, but are those his true colours?

PwC should just be done with it – and change their acronym to ‘PC’. Their ‘report’ into the cost of…

Easter’s resurrection of Liberal lobbyists

Researchers don’t like the word  – but they're running ahead with the idea, and Britain is at the forefront

We know all too well how it feels when politics becomes inescapable. The rest of you are about to find out

The British public’s taste is changing rapidly. And the most poetic people aren’t the ones you’d expect

Today’s fiftysomethings – me included – are pleasure-seeking baby boomers who haven’t ever grown up

In most sports, injury is something going horribly wrong. In boxing, it’s something going horribly right

They’ve eaten my best trousers. And thanks to this mild winter, they’re coming for yours

It was a city in constant turmoil that nurtured the glories of the Renaissance

Britain has the highest energy costs  in Europe, thanks to decisions taken not in Brussels but in Whitehall

Home The Indian company Tata decided to sell its entire steel business in Britain, putting more than 15,000 jobs in…

Also in Sam Leith’s diary: Prue Leith’s Easter Bonnet Parade, teleporting cats and Little Chef

Also in our Barometer column: The dangers of bouncy castles; productivity; wet bank holidays

Cleon’s violent but very persuasive rhetoric was precisely the kind of thing the Republican establishment now hates

From ‘The “Via Sacra”’, The Spectator, 1 April 1916: When the war is over, France, Belgium, and Britain will be faced with…

Plus: visas for Turkish visitors; hot cross buns; low-paid work; asylum seekers; public toilets

New Welfare Secretary Stephen Crabb is a rising star – but does he have the charisma to beat the Mayor of London?

Also in The Spectator’s Notes: Tata Steel; adult social care; farming; the Queen

The spiteful attacks come from people fortunate enough to have been employed by him, shagged by him, or both

Reading my favourite picture book 60 years later, I understand why the story thrilled my infant soul

Microsoft’s Tay has something in common with Donald Trump: a cold-blooded quest for the most retweets

Also in Any Other Business: what if the sage of Silicon Valley had stayed in Britain?

The enfant terrible of Seventies New York even turned market-bought flowers into highly-charged photographic images

Jerry Brotton’s study of how Queen Elizabeth I allied herself with Islam against the arch-enemy Spain makes for fascinating reading

Nordic noir is passé. Welcome to Israeli noir — in Waking Lions, by the clinical psychologist Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

Time travel — and much unpleasant snooping — might prevent the murder of Clowes’s eponymous heroine Patience

Kurtz becomes Koert — an impressively disturbing figure — in this reworking of Conrad’s story, set on a run-down former Afrikaner homestead

Charles Moore strenuously defends the reputation of the former Bishop of Chichester— who dared to criticise the carpet-bombing of Germany, and may have been unjustly accused of child abuse

Ann Wroe enlists naturalists, poets and painters — especially her abiding Sussex genius Eric Ravilious — in some engaging meditations on the effects of light

The claim has been made for other years — but David Hepworth’s argument in Never a Dull Moment actually seems rather convincing

Virtual-reality headsets like Oculus Rift are a game changer, with movies possibly becoming participatory in ways that not only porn will exploit

As is the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition of portraits of Russia’s greatest 19th century writers and composers

The Channel 4 reality TV show satisfies a primal yearning of telling and repeating the boy-meets-girl story

At least, Birmingham Conservatoire’s production made it seem a masterpiece. Plus: we shouldn’t have to rely on students (however fine) to hear Rimsky-Korsakov’s delightful May Night

Plus: With a dozen writers rather than one NotMoses at the Arts Theatre might have been an excellent revue

Cheerful cliches, cheap laughs and novelty jumpers: I can’t remember a more enjoyable afternoon at the cinema

Plus: Royal Ballet's enthralling 30-year-old production of Giselle remains a living treasure, especially now that a thrilling partnership has emerged between Muntagirov and Nunez

Plus: should national borders matter and life advice from Marilynne Robinson

A glamorous program for the special Brisbane Baroque will transport music lovers straight to a baroque heaven. From April 8…

My old mate and one-time tennis partner is right in what he says about professional tennis

An encounter with holiness in an old stone monastery

So it’s not just Aviva who have it in for me - all the insurance companies are at it

St Luke's church hails from a very different time

A memorable festival of great horses, riders and trainers

Tom Townsend, my esteemed teammate and the Telegraph’s bridge correspondent, did the double last weekend at the London Easter Festival…

The internecine but friendly annual rivalry between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, generously hosted last month by the Chess Circle…

Black to play. This is from Pichot-Khismatullin, Moscow 2016. What was Black’s killing blow? Answers to me at The Spectator…

In Competition No. 2941 you were invited to supply a short story entitled ‘Diary of a Superfluous Man’. Turgenev’s Tchulkaturin;…

Answers to clues in italics must become 15 (hyphened) to create grid entries. Definitions of these entries are supplied by…

WILD HORSES, the title of a track on STICKY FINGERS (1D) by the ROLLING STONES (12), defines the other unclued…

This is the use of socialist means to achieve Conservative ends in schools

Never let anyone tell you that the T20 World Championship isn’t cricket at its finest

Plus: I can’t stand be in the same county as my ex-wife, so what should I do when my daughters get married?

If there is another restaurant-homage to Strasbourg in north London, I have yet to find it

The weird metaphor lurking in a suddenly popular term