And so the Great Betrayal of the Australian people continues. Not content with sneakily ratifying the Paris Agreement on Climate…

With its manicured beachfront and sparkling, yacht-speckled view out across the water to the harbour heads, The Bathers Pavilion at…

I am catching up on writing my award-winning treatise on practical politics. Here are three general principles about politics on…

The Punchbowl in Honolulu, Hawaii is a place of reverence in which 34,000 American battle-dead are interred. Battlefield remains are…

‘That moment when they lock eyes and they acknowledge you, it’s hard to put it into words,’ a clearly smitten…

Last week, news broke that something terrible had happened on Melbourne’s public transport. It wasn’t violence, drug taking, or vomiting—these…

When I listened to Greta Thunberg’s recent speech at the UN, I was struck by the immediacy of her dystopian…

The drought is our greatest problem today. While they can’t make it rain, it is elementary that governments can move…

This general election isn’t the most important in a generation, it is the most significant in the lifetime of anyone…

Of all those fighting this general election, the Conservatives are the only ones who need a majority. Labour just needs…

That noise you can hear is Donald Trump flip–flopping in the sand. Last week, American troops and dozens of tanks…

Sport is a paradox. It’s supposed to be. Sport divides, but then again, sport unites. The England rugby union team…

‘Education, education, education.’ At the time when Tony Blair was repeating this phrase after Labour’s victory in 1997, a Nigerian…

There was a spat the other week about a children’s book, Equal to Everything: Judge Brenda and the Supreme Court,…

It has been bizarre to hear the London Fire Brigade taking the brunt of the blame for the deaths of…

Brrring! Freddy Gray of this parish is on the blower. ‘How about a piece for this week saying he’s won,…

 Cape Town Last Sunday, when South Africa beat Wales to go through to the rugby World Cup final against England,…

In 1966, just as he was becoming famous, Michael Caine met John Wayne. The Holly-wood veteran offered him some advice:…

Contrasting Boris Johnson’s enthusiasm for a general election with Jeremy Corbyn’s reluctance, it would be easy to assume that the…

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, having shelved his Brexit Bill in the face of parliamentary opposition, persuaded the Commons…

As my train hurtles northward, my phone starts to buzz. Jeremy Corbyn has agreed to hold a December election. So:…

A December election How unusual is a December general election? Of the 56 elections held since 1800, 5 essentially took…

Last week the Lawyers Group of the charity Classics for All held its fifth moot (cf. ‘meet’) in the Supreme…

Another referendum? Sir: Matthew Parris’s article ‘What question should a second referendum ask?’ (26 October) occasioned a wry smile from me…

How much does Boris Johnson’s move to an early election resemble Mrs May’s disastrous one in 2017? In two important…

As I write this, MPs are arguing about whether a general election should be on 9 December or 12 December.…

I once had a flatmate called Tom, who behaved very oddly when our cleaner came round. On mornings when she…

How sorry I felt for the poor man who died this week stuck up a 290ft chimney in Carlisle despite…

Mario Draghi, who retired as president of the European Central Bank this week, was arguably the first holder of that…

Do not google Samuel Jean Pozzi. If you want to enjoy Julian Barnes’s The Man in the Red Coat —…

James Sallis has a modus operandi: never to waste a word. Sarah Jane (No Exit Press, £8.99) follows this stricture…

Anyone who has read Moby-Dick will recognise the moment, 32 chapters in, when their line of attention, hitherto slackly paying…

There is a moment in one of the longer pieces in Surfacing, Kathleen Jamie’s luminous new collection of essays, when…

Trying to describe the outcome of the Wars of the Roses — the fall of the House of York —…

In a telling moment early on in A Radical Romance, Alison Light admits that she once identified with the character…

It is surely significant that Ed Parnell’s first novel The Listeners was an updated examination of themes latent in Walter…

My admiration for Deborah Harry goes back a long way and — fittingly for a woman who even as a…

‘Everyone of us knows we deserve to be punished,’ says the frail old man before me in a hotel café.…

No power on earth can stop Lungs from becoming an international hit. Duncan Macmillan’s slick two-handed comedy reunites Matt Smith…

Were those gerberas in Francesca Hayward’s bouquet on opening night? Gentlemen admirers take note: no woman, ballerina or otherwise, has…

While looking at the photographs of food in this humorous exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery, I thought of how hopelessly…

Older readers may remember a time when landmark BBC wildlife documentary series were joyous celebrations of the miraculous fecundity of…

Grade: B– Kanye West has found Jesus Christ. Lucky old Christ. If I were Christ I’d have hidden out a…

Some listeners will have had quite a shock first thing on Monday. Turning on at six to Classic FM they…

Wheeeere’s Johnny? Nearly 40 years ago Jack Nicholson went berserk in a snowbound Rockies hotel, smashing an axe through a…

There’s nothing like a good piano concerto and, sad to relate, Thomas Adès’s long-awaited first proper attempt at the genre…

Baron François Gérard would be astonished that his vast 1825 painting of The Coronation of Charles X is the inspiration…

New York   A busy ten days, or nights rather, with some heroic drinking thrown in for good measure. Hangovers…

‘Can I get a taxi around here?’ The man standing behind the counter of the convenience store looked at the…

Sitting on the train to Surrey, I was halfway home and texted the builder boyfriend to say when I would…

Kenya   At his house on Kenya’s coast our neighbour Paul Spicer kept a photograph of himself as quite a…

Peter Fredin may not be the best bridge player in the world, but he gets my vote for the most…

‘If the ball came loose from the back of the scrum, which it won’t of course…,’ said Boris, about his…

White to play. Dahl-Kolbus; Isle of Man, 2019. In this game between two Manx players, White had promoted a pawn…

In Competition No. 3122, to mark the demise of the 178-year-old travel company, you were invited to submit a poem…

Unclued lights (one of two words) give an event, its organiser, some participants, its winners, and the prizes.   Across…

The unclued lights are linked with MAN (at 7A). AXE and AGE were also allowed at 40A. Thanks to various…

I’ve been contacted by a professor at a leading Russell Group university who is worried about the spread of progressive…

New Zealanders can teach the world a lot about sportsmanship. Steve Hansen after last Saturday’s All Blacks defeat by England…

Q. My brilliant brother, who graduated last year, could find nowhere to live in London so we were all delighted…

Bob Bob Cité is a restaurant dangling like testicles from the underside of the Leadenhall Building in the City of…

‘Hospitals named after sandwiches kill five,’ ran a headline in the Times in June. When it was tweeted by the…