Just when freedom of speech has been under attack through the Passion of Israel Folau, this week proved the ‘woke’,…

The federal parliament used to be a place of vigorous but respectful debate. Not now. I was reflecting on this…

When Christopher Hitchens decided to qualify the title of his 2007 magnum opus God is not Great with the caption…

I stepped out in Warringah on Saturday and stepped into a social media storm. I had earlier asked my old…

The news has finally reached us over here in London. Australia is going to have an election. The choice will…

Here’s a piece of news you won’t get from the ABC or the ex-Fairfax press. It concerns the gold-and-wool-rich provincial…

The confluence of mathematics and science provides us with proof and certainty. It is also beautiful: think of Einstein’s theory…

If fish and visitors stink in three days, as Benjamin Franklin advised, it’s easy to see how Wikileaks founder Julian…

It is an irony and paradox that successful conservatism often requires radical solutions. So it was with Margaret Thatcher’s revolution…

Symbolism matters. It’s why the Muslim call to prayer rang out across New Zealand after the Christchurch massacre, and why…

Among the many considerable services Tony Abbott has rendered Australia, one was to persuade the late Paul Ramsay to endow…

Declarations of hope that Notre Dame can be resurrected have been much in evidence this Holy Week. Such is the…

The relationship between the UK and the Republic of Ireland has ‘reached a hunger-strike low’, says a new study by…

I first came across Philip Larkin’s poem ‘This Be the Verse’ when I was 18 in the late 1970s. You…

Mary Berry’s dependable The Aga Book — a book of the last century and part of my kitchen library —…

Four years ago, the Assisted Dying Bill was overwhelmingly defeated in parliament. The euthanasia debate hasn’t disappeared, however. One recent…

Before embarking on this hymn to hymns, I’ll admit that hymn-enthusiasts feel a slight sense of anticlimax on Easter Sunday,…

It is claimed that the prophet Muhammad loved cats. His favourite was called Muezza and he would do without his…

‘Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of centuries,’ wrote Victor Hugo in Notre-Dame de Paris. ‘The man, the…

Home Although the latest date for Brexit had been postponed by the European Council until Halloween, 31 October, the government…

I travel back from London with the St Matthew Passion filling my head, after the moving performance from the Elysian…

From ‘Israel’s Candidature’, The Spectator, 22 April 1949: Israel’s application for UN membership received a chillier reception than had been…

The Christian church ordained that marriage, a sacrament imparting divine grace, was for life. In 1857, the state enacted its…

Embassy endurance Julian Assange was thrown out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, seven years after seeking sanctuary from extradition…

Moaning minnie MPs Sir: I was recently quoted in the Sun newspaper in a story about how MPs were reacting…

This week, the Wolfson History Prize announced its shortlist. It is always worth drawing attention to, precisely because it is…

One of the oddities of this parliament has been that, despite everything, the government has remained ahead in the polls…

I had mixed feelings about the sacking of Roger Scruton from the government’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, following comments…

The bravest thing I’ve ever seen was 93-year-old Albert’s decision to die and the days after in which he stuck…

Here’s a quick quiz to jolly up your Easter. 1. Lucy Noble, artistic director of the Royal Albert Hall, thinks…

‘Virgin trains could be gone from the UK in November,’ blogged Sir Richard Branson from his billionaire hideaway after the…

I can only remember one page of any of the dozens of Ladybird histories that I read avidly as a…

There are more than 100 cathedrals in England, Scotland and Wales of many different denominations (although I for one had…

Vasily Grossman’s novel Life and Fate (completed in 1960) has been hailed as a 20th-century War and Peace. It has…

What is creativity? Marcus du Sautoy, a mathematician and Oxford professor for the public understanding of science, offers this pert…

What do the following filmmakers have in common: Victor Fleming, John Ford, Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Ernst Lubitsch,…

Jill Dawson has a taste for murder. One of her earlier novels, the Orange shortlisted Fred and Edie, fictionalised the…

Norway doesn’t have a world-class philosopher (Kierkegaard was Danish). Karl Ove Knausgaard declared at the end of his previous book…

John Buchan was a novelist, historian, poet, biographer and journalist (assistant editor of The Spectator indeed); a barrister and publisher;…

The 199 steps up to the ruins of Whitby Abbey are a pilgrimage; they always have been. And any good…

Sean Scully once told me about his early days as a plasterer’s mate. At the age of 17 he was…

As if in defiance of the BBC’s current obsession with programming designed to entice in that elusive young and modish…

If you’ve ever faced the social embarrassment of having to admit that you’ve never seen Game of Thrones (Sky Atlantic,…

Total immersion weekends can prove tricky. The established masters don’t need them, while lesser-known figures often turn out to be…

Nigel Slater is popular because he’s an exceptionally meek cook. Not for him the sprawling restaurant empire or the transatlantic…

Fans of Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo, The Great Beauty (which won an Oscar) and his HBO series, The Young Pope,…

Last autumn, anyone who a) has an interest in pop music, and b) reads the weightier end of the press,…

It was one of the most delightful Australian films of the 1990s. Directed by Mark Joffe, Cosi was also one…

New York On 21 April 1980, Rosie Ruiz won the fabled Boston Marathon in record time and looked as fresh…

We drove north and parked in the designated car park with a quarter of an hour to spare before the…

An angry villager accosted me outside my house as I came through my front door. ‘You’re wrong about those horses,’…

You’re probably familiar with the old bridge adage: ‘Never put down an 8-card suit in dummy’. If you’re lucky enough…

I cannot conceal the feeling over the years of Magnus Carlsen’s leading position at the head of world chess, that…

Black to play. This position is a variation from Navara-Carlsen, Shamkir 2019. What is Black’s only winning move? Answers to…

In Competition No. 3094 you were invited to submit a ‘Sonnet Found in a Deserted Mad House’. G.K. Chesterton once…

The unclued lights (one of two words) share a feature, different in each case, and one is a past participle.…

The unclued lights are ACCENTS or DIACRITICAL SIGNS and any appearing on letters in the grid had to be ignored.  First…

By the time you read this, James Delingpole and I will have made our first podcast in 596 days. That’s…

Something very odd happened on the Today programme the other morning. Amid the mountains of bombast that usually fill the…

Q. I am not a professional writer but on the strength of a short piece I contributed to a Festschrift…

Bellamy’s is a Franco-Belgian brasserie in Bruton Place, a dim alley in the charismatic part of Mayfair; the part that…

Spoiler alert: in Henry Fielding’s play Tom Thumb, the hero is swallowed by a cow ‘of larger than the usual…