The decision to cancel this coming week’s sitting of parliament is typical of the entire Turnbull Political Methodology: obfuscate, prevaricate,…

While Tinseltown gets on with outing the sex pests in its senior ranks it’s too soon to say if it…

In 1800, it could take at least 3 or more months, depending on the winds, to sail in a damp,…

The current political wisdom in education — or at least, the ‘wisdom’ of the Left — seems to be that…

Dat’s a nice bottom With so many stories about sexual harassment, I should reveal my experience decades ago. Looking up…

The majority of Australians have now indicated their support for the principle of same-sex marriage and the Government has introduced…

Now that we’ve had time to digest the marriage poll and Mr Turnbull has leapt into action with uncharacteristic decisiveness…

There has been some alarm expressed in Britain by worried editorial writers in journals like the Economist that Jeremy Corbyn…

They’re so small you might not notice them. Sitting side by side on a white wall in Brisbane’s Gallery of…

 Trier, Rhineland Was it really just a few months ago that Angela Merkel was being hailed as the leader of…

No leader is indispensable, but it does feel like the future of Europe stands or falls with Angela Merkel. She’s…

Last week the Daily Telegraph’s front page showed the 15 Tory MPs who had voted against the government under the…

Los Angeles stinks. Not just of the usual things: sex, money, suntan oil, hipster food, surfer wax — odours that…

When Angela Merkel invited refugees to Germany in 2015, tearing up the rules obliging migrants to seek asylum in the…

There are nights when, crossing the dark parkland by my house, I see a man beneath a remote streetlamp. He…

What could be more terrifying than a return to the 15 per cent interest rates with which homebuyers had to…

No seat belts. No airbags. Just air, and coming at you as fast as you like. Motorcycling shouldn’t be allowed,…

Philip Hammond began his first Budget, in March, by playing down its importance — for his big ideas on fiscal…

Home The cabinet, including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, agreed that the European Union would have to be offered something…

At the top of Machu Picchu last week, I saw two wide-winged condors swoop over Sacred Valley through a rainbow…

Enduring love The Queen and Prince Philip celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. They are not the first public figures to…

While the military is running Zimbabwe, there is no hope of anything resembling a functioning democracy replacing the tyrant Robert…

From 12 July 1828: The Chancellor made his financial statement on Friday, in a style of candour and clearness which…

Government by hysteria Sir: In the world where science and politics interact, we see the dismissal of science at the…

Windsor Castle on Monday night sounds like a children’s party magnified. The rooms were filled with golden-leaved trees. A giant…

Never has a European Council been so important to a British prime minister as this December’s is to Theresa May.…

I went to Relate once, the counselling service formerly known as the National Marriage Guidance Council. I wasn’t married at…

There are four of us in this relationship: my partner and I, his horse and my truck. His horse is…

The Chancellor sounded purposeful when he declared that he’ll do ‘whatever it takes’ to boost the rate of housebuilding —…

If you’re Jewish, or Jew-ish, or merely subscribe to the view that Jews should be trusted to recognise anti-Semitism rather…

It can sometimes seem — unfairly but irresistibly — as if the sole function of the myriad Lilliputian German statelets…

The camouflage-painted, smoke-blackened entrance to London’s 1940s Broadcasting House, moated with sandbags and battered by bombs, provided its staff with…

‘I should like,’ Edgar Degas once remarked, ‘to be famous and unknown.’ On the whole, he managed to achieve this.…

Different people find different things impressive. Some claim, for instance, to experience a sense of wonder at the fact of…

In December 1996 Martin Amis told listeners of the BBC’s Desert Island Discs what would relieve his solitude were he…

His Bloody Project, Graeme Macrae Burnet’s previous novel, had the sort of success that most authors and creative writing students…

In 2014 Michael Alig, impresario, party promoter and drug provider, was released on parole after 17 years in prison for…

There’s a scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie in which Tippi Hedren is emptying a safe while a cleaning lady silently…

In the last week of October, the middle-aged Baxter Dury and the boy Baxter Dury were brought together. The 45-year-old…

The inexplicable popularity of Ivo Van Hove continues. The director’s latest visit to the fairies involves an updated version of…

It’s a weird sensation getting your child back for an extended period when for the previous decade you’ve been packing…

On a bullet train out of Shanghai, a nuclear family catches my eye. The father, weather-beaten and wearing an ill-fitting…

Wally Funk is on a mission — to make real her dream that a woman will walk on the moon…

Grade: B- It is truly painful to criticise someone who greatly enrages the Guardian and the leftie music press, and…

The late arch-Rossinian Philip Gossett regarded Semiramide as a neoclassical work, vaguely and alarmingly suggesting to me a musical equivalent…

Battle of the Sexes recreates the famed, culture-changing 1973 tennis match between 55-year-old Bobby Riggs, a self-proclaimed chauvinist, and 29-year-old…

It is a wonderful story in itself. After a self-imposed ‘exile’ of four decades, Elizabeth Harrower became an internationally acclaimed…

The faux Leonardo that sold for 400 million greenbacks — plus a 50 million fee for Christie’s — was a…

The door to Trev’s flat was open so I walked in and found him on the sofa watching TV. He…

Six months into the renovations and I have so much dust in my lungs I have had to give Stefano…

Richard Johnson may already have 100 winners in the bag, and Paul Nicholls may already have banked £750,000 worth of…

When I first started playing tournament bridge there were relatively few European sponsors. The US was buzzing with sponsored teams…

Garry Kasparov was without a doubt Alekhine’s creative heir. The 1985-2000 world champion said himself that he became entranced at…

White to play. This is from Alekhine-Feldt, Blindfold Simultaneous, Tarnopol 1916. White has sacrificed a knight. Can you spot his brilliant…

In Competition No. 3025 you were invited to submit a Lord’s Prayer for the 21st century.   One of my…

Unclued lights are connected to a theme word (which does not appear), three in each of three different senses. Two…

Four types of CAKE (37) were given UPSIDE-DOWN (5): 10D, 20D, 31D and 33D. Four other types of cake were…

Last Saturday, the high-street chain Paperchase ran a promotion in the Daily Mail offering two free rolls of wrapping paper.…

Farmacy, which opened last year, is London’s most fashionable ‘clean eating’ restaurant; it is, therefore, a restaurant for people who…

So the Ashes has finally got over the line, and not a minute too soon. At the time of writing…

Q. I was recently at an informal dinner given by two dear friends, but returned home seething with rage against…

‘It’s up there on the shelf you can’t reach,’ said my husband in an unhelpfully helpful tone. The ‘it’ was…