Whatever she may think about her quaint attachment to the Gold Coast being ‘within the rules’, former Health minister Sussan…

I should stop saying I am appalled by every new horror that arises in public life; there are so many…

As I write this the Trump inauguration is still three days away, so the US intelligence community still has time…

In 1993, Malcolm Turnbull was at a crossroads. Paul Keating had given the well-known journalist, lawyer, banker and republican his…

Here comes Australia Day again and with it, like professional wailers preceding a Sicilian funeral, the chorus of media penitents…

This time last year, the German media lost the confidence of the German people. News of the mass New Year’s…

For a decade, a national apology was sought from Prime Minister John Howard. For a decade, he refused to provide…

Trump’s inauguration will be loathed by many. While the meltdown of his enemies are too long and varied to document,…

Nude begins with that most perfect of bodies: champion archer Teucer drawing his bow, his youthful face absorbed in concentration,…

It’s going to be spectacular, it’s going to be ugly and it’s going to be war. The liberal elites in…

Stoke-on-Trent is an unsettled place, figuratively and literally. The ground under the city is riddled with shafts from coal and…

The ‘most deadly adversaries of republican government,’ wrote Alexander Hamilton, arise ‘chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain…

The well-dressed lady turned the fur collar over in her hands and fixed me with a withering stare. ‘Is this…

The astonishing has happened at Stonehenge. Some prehistoric force has driven ministers to make a decision. It is to spend…

We all love to mock Bond villains for their hilarious ineptitude at killing the hero. The ‘genius’ Dr No has a…

I’ve always lived in London. I grew up near Baker Street and went to school in Camden. Even when I…

Freddy Gray, Paul Wood and Kate Andrews discuss Trump’s arrival at the White House:   As president, Barack Obama was…

There’s trouble brewing in the Alps. Skiers arriving in the mountains over Christmas were greeted, not by snow-clad chalets and…

Given that Donald Trump is not the most popular president the USA has ever seen, even among his own party,…

Starting cold Why is US Presidential Inauguration Day always on 20 January? — The date was moved from 4 March…

Donald Trump was gushing about one European leader in his Times interview this week. But it was the wrong one.…

From ‘Raiders, submarines and some naval problems’, The Spectator, 20 January 1917: At the moment the enemy’s fleet is compelled to…

Rubbish in, rubbish out These are days of momentous, world-shaking, events. But none can match the global impact of the…

Home Britain will leave the single market on leaving the European Union, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said in a…

From the start of the European Union referendum campaign, competing visions of Brexit have been advocated. To Nigel Farage, the…

I’ve objected before to the fact that supporters of Oxfam shops are unknowingly funding not only an aid charity but…

A few weeks ago I was having an argument with Piers Morgan on Twitter. Oh God, is that really how…

When were you last in a game reserve? Perhaps most Spectator readers will be familiar with the experience and if…

‘No negotiation without notification’ has been the EU’s mantra since 24 June last year. Its leaders have been determined that…

I had never heard the acronym Soas before I started work at the BBC, almost 30 years ago. But as…

It is hard to be shocked by anything in these tumultuous times, but I was brought up short by the…

The recent spate of rock memoirs has proved one of the less rewarding sub- genres in the post-digital Gutenberg galaxy.…

During David Cameron’s years as prime minister, an unobtrusive figure could be seen slipping out of the back entrance to…

This past autumn has felt more uncomfortable than usual to be a woman looking at men looking at women. From…

Who is the least likely candidate for an animated princess movie? That’s the question former DreamWorks animator Jason Porath asked…

The fetishisation of the Victorians shows no sign of abating. Over the past 16 years, since the centenary of the…

This month, 30 years ago, I wrote a draft of what was to become soon afterwards the first comprehensive human…

It is a chastening thought that Boris Johnson’s responsibilities now include MI6. Alan Judd’s latest novel is particularly interesting about…

What to make of this unexpectedly startling novel? Though you may be lured into a false sense of familiarity by…

During the second world war, while one brother was editing Punch as a national institution (‘Working with him was a…

At first glance, Robert Olen Butler’s Perfume River seems like an application for a National Book Award. Its protagonist, Robert,…

‘Short of writing a thesis in many volumes,’ Patrick Leigh Fermor wrote in his preface to The Traveller’s Tree, ‘only…

The Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai has only lately become known to Anglophone audiences, through the masterly translations of George Szirtes…

Pankaj Mishra’s Age of Anger wants to explain how we got to a world in ‘a pervasive panic… that anything…

Artists, poets and philosophers have not paid much attention to Milton Keynes …although comedians have. This urban experiment has been…

Let’s be clear: Jackie is a better performance than it is a film, although I suspect the performance will carry…

In the 1940s Lucian Freud took another young painter, Sandra Blow, up to the top of a bombed church in…

This week the Southbank Centre began its ‘Belief and Beyond Belief’ festival — a series of concerts and talks claiming…

The xx is a trio of Londoners whose eponymous first album, released in 2009, has defined the way pop music…

The Barbican website warns us that Ligeti’s opera Le grand macabre ‘contains very strong language and adult themes’. The strong…

The purest form of radio is probably sports commentating, creating pictures in the mind purely through language so that by…

Revolting (Tuesdays) is the BBC2 comedy series that spawned the now-infamous sketch ‘Real Housewives of Isis’. It has been watched…

The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini, has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. Now it arrives on…

If you think you haven’t got anything to wear, then Opera Australia may be able to help you. At the…

At a wedding a few years back a very gloomy looking guest, a well-known Geordie actor as it happens, arrived…

I had lunch recently with an assistant head of a leading independent school and he told me about their ‘growth…

You had to feel for ITV’s new racing team on their opening day at Cheltenham. It was cold, wet and…

The Friday night IMPs game at the Young Chelsea is still the best game around. Some of yesterday’s internationals may…

Richard Réti is one of the most fascinating figures in the history of chess thought. The author of two seminal…

White to play. This is from Réti-Tartakower, Vienna 1910. Can you spot White’s beautiful tactical coup? Answers to me at…

In Competition No. 2981 you were invited to submit a poem about a politician and an item of clothing.  …

The unclued lights (one of two words and one hyphened) are of a kind, all verifiable in Chambers.   Across…

Perimetric trios combine to suggest HOG/MAN/AY: SHILLING, MALE, INDEED; SWINE, ATTENDANT, YES; MOUND, EMPLOYEE, EVER. The relevant activity is FIRST-FOOTING…

Q. At a drinks party at Christie’s this evening my face was splattered with flecks of spit from the guest…

Trump Tower sits between Gucci and Tiffany on Fifth Avenue in New York City. It looks like infant Lego, the…

 Athens I can only ask sardonically: was it worth it? Executed after unspeakable torture without giving anything away — and…

I am very bad at remembering my dreams: I would have been a poor patient for Dr Freud. But I…

Our friend Anthony was reportedly dying and a party of four drove over to the nursing home to say cheerio.…

‘Look, darling, a spelling mistake,’ said my husband, looking out of the window, as he had been for minutes, like…

If the buyer asks me any more questions I am going to pull out. I have to put my foot…