As we go to press, it’s unclear whether the inevitable second round of the Liberal party spill drama will already…

You may have noticed that, up to now, I have been fairly restrained in what I have written about Malcolm…

After my stoush with Graham Richardson on Sky News last month I haven’t been invited back onto the show where…

I recently wrote of anti-Semitism in the US Presbyterian Church. It would, however, be wrong to suggest this is an…

Victoria Police has been brought into disrepute lately by unfortunate bureaucratic decisions with tragic political consequences. At first gradual and…

Turnbull must go. With Abbott, and only Abbott, the Coalition will win in a landslide and save the nation from…

Parliamentary democracy is underrated as a safeguard of personal liberty. From the outside, the perception is that Parliament is mired…

The great Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek said ‘the curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little…

Continuing Hayne Royal Commission revelations of institutional dishonesty by Australia’s big four banks have not only killed off Malcolm Turnbull’s…

I was not the only free speech worrier to fall for Jordan Peterson, the Canadian academic who first came to…

Imagine if Theresa May suddenly announced that her government was going to devalue the pound by 96 per cent; increase…

Donald Trump’s Twitter feed was oddly silent as the news came that his former campaign manager and his former lawyer…

You need a strong stomach to be Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, as a letter from Peter Clarke —…

It is hard to think of a code of behaviour which is common to all societies on earth, let alone…

The brilliant Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell describes doing stand-up at the Edinburgh Fringe as ‘exams for clowns’, and even though…

I got some bad news this week. I discovered that I’m a ‘privileged, white male’. It was my agent who…

Here’s a bracing lesson from Victorian history that might possibly help to slice some impossible Brexit knots. In the 19th…

I’ve flown only three kites in my life. My stepfather bought me the first. I remember seeing him from a…

Economies run on confidence — as Franklin D. Roosevelt observed when he told Americans, in his first inaugural address during…

Home Government finances were in surplus by £2 billion in July. Public sector net debt rose to £1,777.5 billion, equal to 84.3…

Down here near Nice, you find most locals unsurprised by the catastrophic Genoa bridge collapse. The Italian border is only…

Cultured tastes Dawn Butler accused Jamie Oliver of ‘cultural appropriation’ for coming up with his own recipe for jerk rice.…

No go zone Sir: In the leading article of the Spectator Australia (‘Outrage over Anning’, 18 August) it is warned…

Every Wednesday morning in the House of Commons, about a dozen people can be seen making their way along the…

The story of Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan is an interesting one, I think, for what it tells us about…

Everyone knows the real reason people like Donald Trump are sceptical of climate change is that conservatives are fundamentally anti-science.…

As I set to compiling your email responses into our ‘broadband dossier’ to send to BT chairman Jan du Plessis,…

For tens of thousands of years, humans have been domesticating other mammals — cows, buffaloes, sheep, goats, camels, llamas, donkeys,…

All Among the Barley, Melissa Harrison’s third ‘nature novel’, centres on Wych Farm in the autumn of 1933, where the…

When I was younger, one of my favourite books was James Stevens Curl’s The Victorian Celebration of Death. His latest…

The role of Hamlet is, Max Beerbohm famously wrote, ‘a hoop through which every eminent actor must, sooner or later,…

Nick Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, is quick to tell us he’s not…

In ‘A Prize for Every Player’ — one of 12 stories in Days of Awe, a new collection by A.M.…

Translators are like bumblebees. In 1934, the French entomologist August Magnan pronounced the flight of the bumblebee to be aerodynamically…

In 1957, aged 13, Jimmy Page appeared with his skiffle group on a children’s TV programme dedicated to ‘unusual hobbies’…

It’s the lederhosen that grabs you first. Two gents were walking down the street ahead of us in full Alpine…

The Children Act is the third Ian McEwan film adaptation in 18 months (after The Child in Time and On…

Not the most beguiling of titles, I admit, but The Secret Life of Landfill: A Rubbish History (BBC4, Thursday) was…

Still got your record player? Dig it out. The crunchier the music, the better it sounds on vinyl: a broader…

‘It is disastrous to name ourselves!’ So Willem de Kooning responded when some of his New York painter buddies elected…

The return of Sue MacGregor’s long-running Radio 4 series The Reunion (produced by Eve Streeter) is a welcome reminder of…

For recovering teetotallers, like me, Thinking Drinkers is the perfect Edinburgh show. On stage, two sprucely dressed actors perform sketches…

Robert Carsen’s new updating of The Beggar’s Opera is a coke-snorting, trash-talking, breakdancing, palm-greasing, skirt-hiking, rule-breaking affair — and every…

Exhibitions prior to major art auctions can be a wonderful way to view works by significant artists that may not…

This was a real surprise, and on my birthday (11 August) to boot: a grown man, whose parents I used…

The Villa Carnignac art gallery is located on a Mediterranean island off the French Riviera called Porquerolles. Purpose-built to show…

After I had been glossing the woodwork for a few days, I started to feel light-headed. It hadn’t occurred to…

Laikipia ‘This year we’re too broke to take our cattle to the show,’ I told Mark. For six months we…

Long-married couples are notoriously intolerant of one another at the bridge table. It’s as if all their pent-up irritation comes…

The mathematician Euclid once boldly informed King Ptolemy Soter I of Egypt that there was no royal road to geometry.…

White to play. This position is from Nakamura-Mamedyarov, St Louis 2018. Unfortunately for Mamedyarov, he has just blundered in a…

In Competition No. 3062 you were invited to submit a Shakespearean-style soliloquy that a contemporary politician might have felt moved…

Unclued lights are three groups of three words of a kind, each group defined by the name of a different…

The numbers were linked to titles of classic works of FICTION (12): The Two DROVERS (26) (Walter Scott), The Three MUSKETEERS…

Earlier this week, the Labour MP Dawn Butler ‘called out’ Jamie Oliver for ‘appropriation’. His sin, according to the shadow…

Alice Cook’s impending third child could turn out to be the perfect delivery for England. Already the expectant father Alastair…

Q. I live in a houseshare with two other people; one of whom I am very fond of and the…

I wouldn’t normally visit Coq d’Argent, which I think means the chicken of money. It is a moderately famous restaurant…

The Sun gave a sad picture of British loneliness recently in a report about the national yearning to play a…