The list of unresolved and vexed issues that confront the new parliament this week would be enough to give even…

Turnbull’s betrayal on 18c Okay, let’s stop pretending that the Liberal Party has a deep commitment to free speech. We’re…

It is always a pleasure to catch up socially with Tony Abbott whose steadfast friendship I have enjoyed for over…

Tackling the elephant Let’s cut to the chase; Australian political leadership must find the stomach to deal with the core…

I’m not one of those Christians who go in for high days and holy days. Truth be told, I find…

Two absurd propositions are currently gaining unwarranted attention: ‘recognising’ aborigines in the Constitution and a recycled idea from the 1970s…

One of the nastiest perversions of Christianity in the world today – the attempted demonisation and isolation of Israel –has…

That we are to have yet another Royal Commission into Aboriginal Affairs is good news for some. It is good…

Last week on the ABC programme, the Drum, I confronted my unwilling conscience. The topic was the Manus Island immigration…

There’ll always be a Menzies while there’s a BHP For they have paid their dividends since 1883. There’ll always be…

As far as the bride was concerned, the wedding was perfect. Her dress was beautiful, the vows were traditional and…

What should we think about negative interest rates? What kind of Alice in Wonderland world are we living in when…

Ring a ding-ding — here comes the he-bling. Tony Blair started it. The war, that is. On good taste. This…

 Bashiqa, near Mosul, northern Iraq   At night, the temperature around the Islamic State-held city of Mosul drops to around…

Life is starting to look a lot like the 1980s: Russia is flexing its muscles, the Labour party is tearing…

If your destiny is to be shot dead with your mistress, where better than Lake Como, which, in the words…

Jeremy Corbyn may not be right about many things, but when he sat on the floor of a train, hoping…

Golden years How many Olympic events would Team GB have to win before we could earn back the gold reserves…

Theresa May has brought her own advisers with her into No. 10, and as usual the knives are out for…

From ‘The bed-rock of war’, The Spectator, 26 August 1916: As a rule in war the bowling has a great advantage over…

Golden age problems Sir: Johan Norberg’s ‘Our golden age’ (20 August) is absolutely right — we do live in a golden age;…

To Edinburgh for the book festival, where I am to explain Fools, Frauds and Firebrands to respectable middle-class Scots, who…

Home Virgin Trains released videos showing that there were seats available when Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour party,…

This time two years ago, the United Kingdom stood on the brink of dissolution. The referendum on Scottish independence hung…

An almost worldwide survey on penis length — the sort of thing I always read with a sense of trepidation…

Throughout this fractious summer, one thing has united all the warring pundits and politicians. Left, right; Leave, Remain, everyone at…

Did you see that odd photo of George Osborne looking shifty, queuing up in the Vietnamese jungle for the chance…

How many Olympic medals did Opec win? The answer (though I’ll bet no one else has bothered to work this…

All political parties are a mess: coalitions of people with different beliefs, stitched together — like Frankenstein’s monster — into…

Peter Ho Davies’s second novel, The Fortunes, is a beautifully crafted study, in four parts, of the history of the…

It’s a modern pastime to hypothesise about what makes a good relationship. One evening not long ago in a Berlin…

A certain sort of male novelist will always aspire to be Joseph Conrad. The seedy cosmopolitanism of his fiction and…

At first glance Sean O’Brien’s new novel appears to focus on England’s devotion to the past. Even its title carries…

On 8 June 1920 an old beggar woman sat against a wall in Kingsway holding a mongrel in her arms…

He might be 85 but Tom Wolfe is going strong with a new book and a dustjacket photo that still…

On 25 July 1865, during a heatwave, Dr James Barry died of dysentery in his London lodgings. A charwoman came…

Between agreeing to review this book and receiving it, I got worried. Like many, I adore Doctor Zhivago with its…

Centuries before their footballers learned giant-slaying ways, Icelanders knew how to startle the world with tall stories. In the moonscape…

In March 1981 Margaret Thatcher went to the hospital bedside of Maurice Oldfield, the former head of the Secret Intelligence…

This is the time of the year when the major performing arts companies announce their seasons for next year, beginning…

Last Sunday, I went to see two of the greatest paintings in Britain — at least in the estimation of…

On Saturday night, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra makes its first appearance at the BBC Proms under its new…

You know when late summer has arrived because conkers are starting to form on the horse chestnuts, your eagerness to…

Everything about Julieta feels totally Almodóvarian. It’s a family saga that smoothly blends tragedy and levity, with exquisite performances from…

‘European premiere of classic American musical’ is a phrase that deeply alarms the experienced playgoer. As I tootled along to…

Crystal Pite, the Canadian dancemaker who combines intellectual, emotional and physical intelligence in rare degree, is classically trained, but her…

One of the weirdest responses when someone close to you dies is the gradual realisation that now at last you…

The BBC has published a list of the 100 best films of the 21st century, compiled after consulting academics, cinema…

Black to play. This is from Vachier-Lagrave–Anand, Sinquefield Cup, St Louis 2016. White has played to win a pawn but…

The 6th Duke of Westminster, who died this month, was living support of the claim that wealth doesn’t make you…

Seven words read clockwise round the perimeter, in alphabetical order. Each of eighteen clues contains a misprinted letter in the…

  Q. We have been invited to stay with a generous friend in Greece. Now we hear from other (slightly…

Kenya When the late Tom Cholmondeley walked into his cell after being accused of murder in Kenya’s Rift Valley, etched…

From the humble status of wild-card entry at St Louis last year, the US Grandmaster, Wesley So (formerly of the…

In Competition No. 2962 you were invited to supply a poem about a body part of an author of your…

21 and 41 are definitions of SUMMER; RECESS defines each of the other unclued lights.  First prize Rhiannon Hales, Ilfracombe,…

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

Revisers of OED have made a pig’s ear of pelican pie, I fear. I’ve been reading for pleasure Peter Gilliver’s…

‘How did I get here?’ I think dazedly. I am sitting in the Big Yellow Self Storage in Balham being…

Friends have a house in Provence, near the foot of Mont Ventoux. Even in a region so full of charm…

OK sports fans, the Games are over, Uncle Sam and Britain hit pay dirt, and the prettiest girl of the…

Next week I’m going to Ladakh for a travel gig. Me neither — never heard of it. So I heaved…

There’s been a fair amount of moaning about the English Bridge Union’s decision to move the week-long ‘Summer Meeting’ —…

Back in the 1980s a colleague of mine was paranoid about being burgled. Before he went away on a two-week…