You may not have guessed it from Josh Frydenberg’s speech, dolefully read at the pace of a 45-rpm record played…

Why are the Liberals silencing free speech?

Putin’s invasion is not going to plan

R.I.P. Globalisation

The soaking wet SA Libs got what they deserve

It’s the climate change policies, stupid

Time for conservatives to fight back

New Zealand’s ‘new kind of leader’ is destroying her country

US self-hatred is poisoning the West

Hunter Biden’s laptop re-booted

Hung parliament possible

On the day before my seventh birthday, which I spent at my grandma’s in Yorkshire, a young man named Raymond…

A crisp sandwich is a private and personal endeavour. In my experience (and I have considerable experience in this particular…

Covid has changed London for the better

Is Biden’s approach to the war more calculating than it seems?

Life on the Falklands, 40 years on

The destruction of Ukraine’s churches

These ‘endangered’ birds are taking over

Aggression is everywhere in New York

Dmitry Firtash wants to help with the war effort — but can we trust him?

Oscar week is intense – and it’s been a while since it’s been as intense. The red carpet is full…

Nuclear future Sir: It is refreshing to see Martin Vander Weyer note that, properly and fully costed, nuclear power is…

Home Twenty fixed-penalty fines were issued after the police inquiry into Downing Street parties that broke Covid rules, but the…

The Oscar frenzy spent, it is worth reflecting on how easy writers and actors have it these days. The ancient…

Common knowledge Tensions in the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Jamaica led some to speculate that…

Afew weeks ago it seemed that the issue of Downing Street parties over lockdown had been usurped by a more…

Should you happen to spot me these days lurking outside a Calvin Klein boutique, notebook in hand, I assure you…

Delighted though we all are that Benedict Cumberbatch has decided to allow a Ukrainian family to live in one of…

Spring commonly augers a quickening warmth, but for Britons this year the season coincides with a chilling marker: a 54…

A month in, and the war in Ukraine looks very different to how anyone expected. On the first day of…

It is uncanny how swiftly British culture imitates the worst of American culture. Take Whoopi Goldberg, who distinguished herself again…

Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands 40 years ago. I had joined the Daily Telegraph as a reporter in 1979 and…

Glasses chinked. From massive chandeliers, lights glittered beneath the high vaulted ceiling; heroic statuary around the carved stone walls stared…

Is there a woke case to be made for freedom of expression? Jacob Mchangama certainly seems to think so. This…

NoViolet Bulawayo’s first novel We Need New Names,shortlisted for the Booker in 2013, was a charming, tender gem, suffused with…

Frida Liu, the 39-year-old mother of a toddler named Harriet, has a very bad day which will haunt her for…

Richard Cohen was once one of our foremost book editors as well as being an Olympic sabre champion. Since moving…

Modern British history can be divided into two parts: before Covid and after. That is the central pillar of this…

There’s no excuse for dullness, especially when writing about a life as eventful as Joseph Johnson’s, the publisher and bookseller…

‘Dearest Gwen,’ writes Celia Paul, born 1959, to Gwen John, died 1939, ‘I know this letter to you is an…

An ocean of clichés surrounds Britain’s maritime history, from Chaucer’s Shipman to the ‘little ships’ at Dunkirk. Tom Nancollas, whose…

The Catholic church has always venerated Mary (‘Mother of God’) above other saints. But in recent years there has been…

As Europe descended into chaos, the middle-aged Picasso remained as bullish as ever, says Craig Raine

There is nothing like a ghastly war, an inscrutable election and a great rush of entertainment high and low to…

For an art form that once boldly set out to question conventional divisions of gender, ballet now seems to be…

Laura Gascoigne dishes the dirt on Raphael

This year the Oscar for best film went to the drama Coda– ‘Child of Deaf Adults’ – but the ceremony…

The iron law of TV these days is that if you want to avoid series that are suffocatingly right-on the…

Grade: B That thing, ‘indie rock’, is so well played and produced these days, so pristine and flawless, that it…

It’s good of Nicholas Hytner to let Londoners see David Hare’s new play before it travels to Broadway where it…

Blame it on Serge Diaghilev. Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908 and never saw the première of his last opera, The Golden…

According to our National Archives, the aim of the Immigration Restriction Act, aka the White Australia Policy, was ‘to limit…

A reader (Rosie) has drawn my attention to a new(ish) word: ‘coddiwomple’. Rosie wrote to say that she has been…

‘I love this old watering can,’ said my sister, sprinkling the miniature rose. ‘Though I do worry about soaking Mum.…

Something has been bothering me of late, and that is my total lack of schadenfreude. The malicious pleasure at someone’s…

For Barbara and Alick Richmond, Living Legend’s game 12-1 victory in Kempton’s 1m 2f Magnolia Stakes last Saturday was their…

I don’t play rubber bridge nearly as much as I used to, but I still enjoy the occasional game at…

In evolutionary terms, it is obvious why we get more conservative with age. Two strong forces, acting in the same…

As I’ve got older my tastes have generally become less refined. During my youth I dutifully slogged through Kafka, Camus…

Q. I live in the Hampshire countryside, in a lovely apartment where I have the use of an old walled…

Doc writes: This is Columba’s last puzzle for The Spectator which we are pleased to publish now, three years after…

White to play and mate in two. Philip Hamilton Williams, Birmingham News, 1897. Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.ukby Monday…

NICOLAS POUSSIN painted ET IN ARCADIA EGO and A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME. The latter inspired ANTHONY POWELL,…

If only toasts and good wishes were weapons of war. At every serious repast I have attended since the invasion…

In Competition No. 3242, you were asked to submit a short story that is a mash-up of cli-fi with a…

The 140th edition of the Varsity Match took place last month at the Royal Automobile Club in London’s Pall Mall.…

I never cared much for the word sibling, though I hardly knew why. The reason must be that it was…

Since recovering from Covid, I seem to have quietly been developing supernatural powers. At first I thought I had simply…