Thirty years ago, Paul Keating did a great service by launching a cultural shift from retirement almost entirely dependent on…

Brexit, abbott, latham and team turnbull I just learned a fascinating fact. Apparently the voters in Britain actually voted to…

This one’s a stitch: according to a recent Essential poll, 49 per cent of Australians believe Muslim immigration should be…

Connoisseurs of our sunburnt country’s timeless heritage have a treat in store next month. An indigenous tanderrum, or ceremonial mass…

It’s just the calm before the storm. Despite the apparent parliamentary resolution of the government’s superannuation fracas, the battle is…

The government claims it had a good week last week, increasing taxes on savings, raising effective marginal tax rates on…

The surge of the far-right Front National (FN) since Marine Le Pen took over the leadership of the party from…

The reaction to Pauline Hanson’s maiden speech was a reminder that like Disraeli’s England, Australia is now two nations ,…

Watching the circus that was the Republican convention to endorse Donald Trump’s candidacy was enough to make Australian voters such…

This leadership contest was meant to topple Jeremy Corbyn, or at the very least weaken him. It looks almost certain…

Beijing Gerard Manley Hopkins said that if the English had done nothing but ‘left the world the notion of a…

Soon, soon, you will see a wondrous sight,’ says the Isis anthem, ‘for your destruction, my sword has been sharpened.…

Sometimes an idea is so barmy that worrying about it ever becoming reality seems pointless. So when the Labour MP…

On 14 June, a short email popped up in the inboxes of all Financial Times editorial staff. It came from…

Six years ago, the publishers Hachette took the well-meaning yet preposterous step of making ‘sensitive text revisions’ to Enid Blyton’s…

Thomas Hardy, while still married to his first wife Emma, but arranging assignations in London with Florence, his second-wife-to-be, used…

Corbyn’s allies on the hard left are lining up to reform the Labour party. Some make him look like a…

The hopelessness of the EU is well demonstrated by the current rhetoric issuing from its inner chambers: that Britain must…

From ‘The Battle of the Somme’, The Spectator, 23 September 1916: It may prove to be the fact that the battle…

Underbooked David Cameron is said to be struggling to get a good price for his memoirs, with talk of a…

Are you here to seek political asylum?’ asked a clever young student after my lecture at the National University of…

Home Theresa May was ‘quite likely’ to invoke Article 50 in January or February 2017, Donald Tusk, the president of…

Only now does Angela Merkel concede that her admitting a million refugees last year was a mistake. It was obvious…

Beyond reason Sir: As an avowed atheist Matthew Parris asks an eloquent and critical question in regard to the achievement…

I was awoken late on Monday night by a horrible nightmare, one of those dreams where you cannot be entirely…

Do you remember Alan Kurdi, the poor, drowned three-year-old whose photograph provoked a wave of sympathy for migrants almost exactly…

Since he moved to Hong Kong three years ago, the Rat’s Cantonese has been coming on apace. This has rather…

Hinkley Point — for all its flaws and the whiffs of suspicion around its Chinese investors — has finally received…

When I read that Martin Roth, the director of the V&A, was resigning from his job because of Brexit, I…

History teaches no lessons but we insist on trying to learn from it. There is no political party more sentimental…

‘Here is a story from the winter days of the end of 1959 and the beginning of 1960,’ announces the…

The 12th-century crusader Reynald de Chatillon was one of the most controversial men of his time, and his new biographer…

It’s 2008 in Manhattan, and there’s still a brief window for the Goldman bankers to swill their ’82 Petrus before…

The Good Immigrant, a collection of essays about black and ethnic minority experience and identity in Britain today, is inconsistent,…

I remember an American author once saying she wrote about love and friendship because, after all, these were the fundamental…

For a long time the Australian military has been very wary about public discussions, so this first book is a…

To tell this story of his search for a mother lost to mystery in early infancy, its author uses the…

Picking a day at random, ‘an unremarkable Saturday in America’, the Guardian journalist Gary Younge identified ten children and teenagers…

Searching for a 12-month stretch in the life of Elizabeth Jane Howard (1923–2013) that might illuminate the kind of person…

Eventually,’ said Michelangelo Pistoletto, ‘it became a movement. In fact, I believe that arte povera was the last true movement.…

Modern Britain scratches its head over children who are overfed, not underfed, while guilt-ridden mothers stand accused of feeding children…

Depending on your point de vue, Haussmann’s imperial scheme for Paris created townscape of thrilling regularity or boring uniformity. Whatever;…

For a 21st-century gallery, a Victorian collection can be an embarrassment. Tate Modern got around the problem by offloading its…

‘A fool’s errand’. That is how Lonnie Bunch, founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and…

In this week of toadying obsequies after the (rather late) retirement of Sir Nicholas Serota from his imperial throne at…

The Emperor seems like a worthy lesson in Ethiopian history. Haile Selassie’s final days are recounted by a retinue of…

The closing credits of National Treasure (Channel 4, Tuesday) contain the usual disclaimer that any resemblance between its characters and…

We now think of Radio 3 as the music station, but when it was created in 1946 as the Third…

I can’t say I care for zombies particularly or even understand them — OK, they’re the living dead, but what…

David Jones administration may be moving to Melbourne but that won’t worry Sydney: it knows where DJ’s really belongs. Reading…

In Competition No. 2966 you were invited to filter popular nursery rhymes through the prism of political correctness. Some years…

The post The Battle for Britain appeared first on The Spectator.

Q. How can I tactfully request that well-meaning old friends stop toasting my (new) husband’s hospitality? It seems ungrateful but,…

Unless you are a monk in Mount Athos, or a Tibetan holy man, El Morocco rings a bell as one…

Two books to recommend to my fellow transportation nerds: Travel Fast or Smart? A Manifesto for an Intelligent Transport Policy…

Jonathan Swift, in his satirical poem ‘An Epistle to a Lady’, says modestly: ‘If I can but fill my Nitch,/…

Sicily Under the watchful eye of Mount Etna the storied past of the island lies parched and yellowish, but as…

One side of the hostel overlooked Waterloo station’s 22 platforms. Trains departed and arrived at the rate of two or…

Out of the blue, I woke up one morning and my feet didn’t work. I opened my eyes, swung my…

The publication of private emails by Colin Powell has spread panic in Washington. Now nobody feels safe. Some prominent people…

Any Australian who admits to not having convict ancestors loses caste. When granted a coat of arms, the smart ones…

Laikipia For a rancher north of Mount Kenya, a man’s best legacy might be a good bloodline of Boran beef…

I’ve been in a bridge bubble in Wroclaw for the past two weeks, playing in the World Bridge Games. I…

The 42nd Chess Olympiad in Baku, Azerbaijan, ended in a narrow victory for the USA. Having tied with Ukraine, the…

White to play. This position is from Heredia-Videnova; Women’s Olympiad, Baku 2016. Can you spot the White continuation that enabled…

Four pairs of unclued lights suggest the constituent parts of a name (two words). Elsewhere, ignore three accents. Across 1   …

Clues with misprints were 16, 22, 24 and 34 Across and 2, 3, 6, 26, 31 and 36 Down. Corrections…

Forgive me if I don’t get too worked up about Momentum Kids. For those who haven’t been following Labour’s internal…