‘This is something we have to take seriously.’ So said Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson in his post-budget address to business…

It is a minority opinion, but to me there seems to be a remarkable lack of passion and enthusiasm in…

I first met David Armstrong early in 1947 when, recently discharged from the Navy, he arrived at Sydney University and…

Budget day. It has its time-honoured rituals which outlive governments of all persuasions. There’s the pre-budget leaks both intentional and…

How I found out John Stuart Mill’s liberalism is in my DNA

Drop everything and marvel at Night on Bald Mountain

The ‘entitlement generation’ is being blamed for the sins of society, from txt spk to coward punches

The problem with the government’s fiscal agenda isn’t that it’s too mean; it’s that it remains too confusing

It’s absurd to compare Julia Gillard’s carbon tax backflipto Tony Abbott’s post-election budget proposals

Ukip has changed the shape of politics – for the better

Ukip's leader is now a genuine celebrity – go out on the street with him and you'll see

I went expecting to find mustard trousers. I found down-to-earth ex-Labour voters

Well, I think I might have met his match. She's called Deirdre McCloskey

Nominations are now open

Junk mail is 20 years old – and there’s more of it every day

You smelt them, it was said of the Mongol hordes, before you heard them, and by the time you heard…

Without Cold War clarity, it's failing miserably to face up to Putin

Home Demand for housing posed ‘the biggest risk to financial stability’ according to Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank…

Plus: Inside The Donald’s private jet, and crime and space-flight in the Highlands

Plus: Extradition, minimum wages and the European parliament

More self-employed people? No problem!

An independent policy Sir: James Curran’s review of my book Dangerous Allies (‘Radical nationalist’, 17 May) showed a significant and…

Plus: An internet connection with Turkey, the curse of the 'garage action', and the advance of France in Nigeria

They really are exceptionally law-abiding. But maybe they’re planning something

If you ever wonder whether it’s worth dragging your child to practice, I have the answer

Sometimes, Dr Google is your friend

Plus: In praise of the high street, and why the Rich List should be a set text for sixth-formers

A review of Constant Lambert: Beyond the Rio Grande, by Stephen Lloyd. Constant by name, but not by nature

A review of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty. The French economist’s proposals are as shaky as the analysis to which they are precariously connected

A review of Hans Christian Andersen, by Paul Binding. The writer spent his whole life trying to run away from his miserable childhood

A review of The Stories, by Jane Gardam. The people in this novel may be a dying breed, but there is nothing old-fashioned about the storytelling

A review of The Baby Boom, by P.J.O’Rourke. Like all the best memoirs, Baby Boom stirs suppressed memories in the reader

Christopher Maclehose recalls his dealings with the author of the Flashman novels, George Macdonald Fraser

But the good-natured director’s endorsement of Ed Miliband wouldn't fill you with confidence

Damian Thompson wonders whether he has time to appreciate Suk's Asrael Symphony or Hindemith's Mathis der Maler

Andrew Lambirth is smitten by the vibrant geometries of the influential German-American painter

The glorious results are on show at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh

Sadler's Wells throw lovers into the cauldron of Italian Fascism. Plus: a Royal Opera House triple bill that is only let down by a murder that drags

Plus: a needlessly hyperactive Cosi fan tutte from Phelim McDermott at the ENO

Plus: a deeply conservative play (that thinks it's radical) about the NHS

A film that’s complicated and messy – so, quite like life, in fact

Plus: another ‘rare’ interview with Philip Roth for BBC1’s Imagined

Plus: Nigel Farage’s LBC moment

As Thelwell Country at the St Barbe Museum in Lymington shows, watercolours were a large part of his repertoire too

Marriage isn't my strong point, but it's the glue that holds the world together

It was like crawling out of my sleeping bag on a different, quieter continent

Before long, I knew I was never going to be seen – all the babies and children were shooting to the front of the queue

The patient knows very well what the symptoms are; so does the GP. That doesn't mean they can understand the description of them

I expected that being poisoned would be rather invigorating – similar to a whiff of tear gas in a riot

There’s no point in soft-soaping it: however long you’ve been playing bridge, however well you think you play, if you’ve…

The game that clinched Magnus Carlsen’s victory in the Gashimov Memorial came, fittingly, in a last-round cliffhanger against his closest…

White to play. This position is from Wojtaszek-Safarli, Gashimov ‘B’ Group 2014. The white pieces are very active and the…

In Competition No. 2848 you were invited to submit a poem commenting on Scottish independence in the style of William…

Six unclued lights (one hyphened) suggest words each differently formed from the same 13 22, which appears as a clued…

The unclued lights are all CHARACTERS (18D) in Plato’s dialogues, all but SOCRATES (1A) appearing in titles. In six cells,…

US journalists think they're public servants. We know we're hacks – and we're good at it

Sometimes it’s better to be brave than good

Plus: What to do with all those first editions from book launches, and how to deal with a fellow guest who drinks from your wine glass

Oh, and don’t bother reading George Meredith

It’s in Shakespeare, too. And to think I called it ‘inauthentic’