Prime Minister Anthony Albanese can hardly be surprised that President Donald Trump didn’t meet him at the G7 summit this…

I have been reminded that there was at least one word I omitted from my glossary of words and phrases…

Trump’s first 150 days have been great

The failing state

All we are leaving future generations is a bill they will be unable to pay

Dangerous days in the Forbidden City

Only Australian aborigines were never infected with gold fever

The coup of the lanyard class

Defence is about much more than spending money

Our foreign policy is headed in the Wong direction

Impoverishing Australians, leaving us defenceless

‘But will anyone be interested?’ the vicar asked cautiously. It was a fair response to my latest madcap scheme. One…

Sir Keir Starmer was alerted in the early hours of Friday by his national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, that Israel’s…

Venetians are once again revolting. Not, this time, against cruise ships, wheeled luggage, over-tourism or rule from mainland Mestre. No…

Are we already seeing an ominous mission creep in Israel’s blistering attack on Iran? First, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s air…

‘This never would have happened if I had been president,’ says Donald Trump, whenever the international news goes from bad…

‘Same old boring Sunday morning, old men out, washing their cars.’ So begins the punk anthem ‘The Sound of the…

I once heard an American complain that, being married to an Englishwoman, he was regularly baffled by the contents of…

Another inquiry into child sexual abuse, another minister insisting that this time it will be different. Yvette Cooper promises arrests,…

Over a hotel breakfast in Brisbane, I showed Sir Alan Hollinghurst my injuries. We’d met the previous week at the…

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, announced a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs (which he had previously…

Some crimes are so horrific that our instinct is to look away. And there can be few as appalling as…

Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill has generated much talk about the ethics of suicide. As far as the ancients were…

Bad lads Sir: The articles on Britain’s relationship with porn were fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. Fascinating in that…

Last week the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released its State of World Population report. According to the Guardian: ‘Millions…

As a minister I lived by mantras: simple principles that summed up how I believed you got things done. Faced…

Cardinals elected the new Pope within a fortnight but it will take almost a year to choose our next Archbishop…

It’s surely time we dropped our cynicism and got behind the government’s National Abortion Drive, another noble attempt to kickstart…

Well, would you look at Mark Carney. Just three months ago I described the incoming prime minister of Canada and…

Over the past few days British readers have been able to enjoy a number of hot takes on the situation…

A new book by an American writer, Christine Rosen, details the way in which we are losing touch with the…

Are women’s relationships with each other today more brittle and less supportive than in the past?

An academic specialising in ecology, Mah traces her constant anxiety about the world to a ghostly Chinese forebear

Prolonged warfare between city states was conducted largely by mercenaries, whose accrued fortunes translated into social status through patronage of the arts

It is impossible to fully understand one without the other, says Greg Grandin. Despite their numerous differences, their relationship is fundamentally symbiotic

Though long curable, the disease remains endemic in India, Mozambique and Brazil, with lack of medical funding leaving lepers among the world’s most marginalised people

A satire on Oxford university life points up ideological tensions, the pettiness of college politics and the patronising ways of the young and privileged

An anguished Trinidadian divorcée decides after 40 years to search for the daughter she was forced as a teenager to give up for adoption

The Book Society’s recommendations in the 1930s included novels by Dorothy Whipple, E.M. Delafield, C.S. Forester and A.J Cronin, with popular history from Arthur Bryant

The French composer’s aesthetic was so influential that he gave us the sound of the contemporary world, says Ian Penman

We all need a place away from public view – but we should also remind ourselves why our privacy has been so invaded

It is best applied not to individuals but to teams or milieux, says Helen Lewis. The idea that a few special people are fundamentally more gifted than their peers is not only corrosive but inaccurate

Shamelessness is now ubiquitous in our narcissistic society. But to the ancient Greeks shame was a spur to honourable deeds and synonymous with modesty and respect

The house was awash with the Russians this week – first because someone was reading George Saunders’ A Swim in…

These days the heart sinks when Deutsche Grammophon announces its new releases. I still shudder at the memory of Lang…

First it was 28 Days Later (directed by Danny Boyle, 2002), then 28 Weeks Later  (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2007) and…

If you’ve been reading the more excitable pages of the arts press lately, you might be aware that the London…

Everyone forgets the actual opening scene of 28 Days Later, even though it’s deeply relatable, in that it features a…

Paralysed rather than empowered by the heavy hand of Big Brother Arts Council, the major subsidised dance companies are running…

Stereophonic is a slow-burning drama set in an American recording studio in 1976. A collection of hugely successful musicians, loosely…

Through the grey downbeat years of postwar austerity, we nursed cheering fantasies of a life more lavishly colourful and hedonistic.…

Can you imagine how dull a TV detective series set in a realistic Scottish police station would be? Inspector Salma…

For bands of a certain vintage, the art of keeping the show on the road involves a tightly choreographed dance…

It used to be believed that treaties could be agreed only between sovereign nations. No longer. The Victorian government, forward-looking…

When a letter to the editor called a political talking head a ‘dingbat’ I searched for the origin of the…

One of the objections to the military parade in Washington, DC last Saturday – supposedly to mark the 250th birthday…

Q. I recently attended an opera on a friend’s estate in Kent. It was a multi-generational, non-ticketed, invitation-only event. The…

If you can bear to turn away from the Fifa Club World Cup, take a moment to ponder cricket and…

Sir Keir Starmer said the other day that he wanted to put rocket boosters under AI. It’s not the only…

The Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station is George Gilbert Scott’s masterpiece: his Albert Memorial in Hyde Park (a…

An inquest into the Derby in the Oakley household was to be expected. Mrs Oakley, who bets about as often…

Four of us go for lunch once a month. My hippy ceramist neighbour, Geoffrey, is a foodie and one of…

‘You could mow all this lawn here and it would look a treat,’ said the arborist, returning from a stroll…