The United Nations’ corporate hatred of the nation of Israel and the Jewish people is clear from the ever-growing list…

The way some political leaders and the media responded to the terrorist outrages in Paris was fascinating. First, I was…

  Hug a Muslim today   If the Federal government fails to insist that Christian Syrians alone make up Australia’s…

If the Aussie dollar could be said to have gone up and down like a bride’s nightie over the last…

Two days after the Paris attacks I arrive in Vienna for a United Nations meeting on human trafficking. Every one…

Now everybody is arguing about Islamism

To defeat Islamic fascism, the nations of the enlightenment need to start believing in themselves

The Turnbull coup is impacting upon our national security

The deployment of our military might in Syria will exacerbate regional disorder – and it will solve nothing

Russia and Nato should work in ­cooperation, not competition. But bombing alone will not be enough

By arguing about rhetoric in response to the Paris attacks, we make the western navel the centre of the action

The Sun survey that suggested Muslims sympathise with terrorists was misleading

Naive he may be, but he’s consistent – and at least he’s thinking about the future

For engaging with sceptics, and discussing uncertainties in projections frankly, this Georgia professor is branded a heretic

A meditation on the latest imported festival in the calendar of late capitalism

It was saddening to realise that the god of my childhood still thinks like a child

I’ll willingly admit that the moors of south-west England are not my natural territory. Mention the word ‘Dartmoor’ and my…

By now, George Osborne had hoped to have completed his austerity programme. Instead, he finds himself making what is, still,…

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, announced, as part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review, plans for two 5,000-strong…

Plus: Brian Redhead; warmongers and appeasers; the first rule of the BBC Survivors Club

Plus: energy use in the age of climate change; home ownership under the Tories; the world’s rarest creatures

The true meaning of dedication requires a kind of self-sacrifice not normally found at awards ceremonies

From ‘Public loans and private savings’, The Spectator, 27 November 1915: In the nature of things there is no reason for…

Not Jesus Sir: Damian Thompson (Pope vs church, November 7) is concerned that Pope Francis is compromising “the great strength…

Sajid Javid and Liz Truss proposed reductions at Business and Environment that were knocked back by the Treasury

Plus: Horace Vernet’s North African paintings; charity fat cats; how a Cambridge college refused to treat me as a lady

As a Muslim cleric has to deny saying it’s OK to eat your wife, the BBC and the liberal establishment just cringe with appalling liberal bias

The horrible events seem to have prompted Dr Welby to question his faith

My hope is that the conference in Paris next week will focus less on tub-thumping, more on practical solutions

Plus: the Viagra-Botox merger, and memories of Jim Slater

Reagan, Schultz, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze are the giants bestriding Robert Service’s magisterial account of the end of the Cold War

Erica Jong’s entertaining Fear of Dying focuses on the fearsome juggling act of being a daughter, parent and grandparent at 60

LSD, Vietnam, civil rights and the Cold War are all linked to pop music in Jon Savage’s solemn tome about the explosive decade

Andrew Lambirth’s choice includes Berger, Bacon, Bown, and Bawden among many others

Mick Conefry describes the occultist Aleister Crowley as being among many sent mad by the treacherous mountain

Melanie McDonagh’s recommended picture books feature (outside Noah’s Ark) a greedy pig, an Ancient Egyptian crocodile and some practical cats

Short stories from Ali Smith, Nicholas Shakespeare, Lucia Berlin and David Gates, chosen by Ysenda Maxtone Graham

Bruce Robinson argues passionately (and a little madly) for his new candidate for the Ripper: a popular musician called Michael Maybrick

‘The Australian Labor Party is composed of two main factions,’ writes novelist Shane Maloney, ‘Them and Us’. This truth illuminates…

There are some wonderful bikes on show in Cycle Revolution at the Design Museum but there’s too much slavish adoration too

It’s possibly why Tate Britain’s Artist & Empire exhibition is so thin — and why the Queen’s Gallery display of Dutch masters is so rich

In this early music round-up, the Wanamaker Playhouse, Solomon's Knot, Francesca Caccini, WNO and Christian Curnyn's Rameau come out on top

Previously I had thought you can’t have too much of Cate Blanchett, but there is a heck of a lot of her here - and she’s mostly stagey and mannered

Evening at the Talk House is like witnessing a drunk trying to set fire to an ice cube, while Waste is three hours of moral tribulation performed inside a giant Hovis loaf

The interplay between celebrities in extremis offers such endless dramatic variety and tension you could almost be watching Shakespeare

Plus: how to make a point without saying a word

In 1789, at the beginning of the French Revolution, one of the most popular operas in Paris was Richard Coeur-de-Lion.…

The liberal media are more concerned about the reaction to the ruthlessness of Isis than about the ruthlessness itself

Later that afternoon, armed with a wide-mouthed empty plastic bottle, I went to see Mary Magdalene’s skull

They dream of the day Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister and puts an end to wealth creation and good management of the countryside

Maybe ‘we’ve got flowers’ is as good a response as any to the Paris atrocities

Horses’ souls, betting coups and SOE heroes: Robin Oakley’s selection of anecdotal treasure troves

Last weekend saw the qualifying matches for the Tollemache Cup, the inter-county championships for teams of eight. I didn’t play…

Last week saw the death of the city financier Jim Slater. He was famous in chess circles for joining Henry…

Black to play. This position is from Basman-Keene, Slater Tournament, Southend 1968. How can Black quickly gain a decisive advantage?…

In Competition No. 2925 you were invited to submit a short story entitled ‘The Winter’s Tale’. There were lots of…

The unclued lights (all of two or three words, some hyphened and all confirmed in Chambers) can be arranged into…

First prize Mrs M. Purdie, Ceres, Cupar, Fife Runners-up Nick Hussey, Overton, Hampshire; K. Parekh, Wayne, Illinois

I’m no fan of Spielberg’s ‘serious’ films — his schlockier work had the best approach to the bad guys

Murray may be a one-man band but a British victory in Ghent is all-but assured

Plus: how to applaud while drinking champagne, and rock-star etiquette

Richard Caring, Asian fusion’s very own Bond villain, has created his most ludicrous place yet

Just at the moment, in the gender-role wars, ‘man’ is attached to more and more things