We have heard much over the past fortnight, thanks to a new citizenship test and the Anzac commemorations, about Australian…

Your body belongs to the nation For a bloke who doesn’t mind a bit of regulation – you may recall…

Trump’s first 100 days: A big failure and a new low in the polls, blasted the Washington Post in March,…

The sub-leader in the Australian some months ago (‘Sipping water a capital offence’) called attention to the plight of Mrs…

Malcolm Turnbull has always been a vote loser, contrary to the opinion of the commentariat who put him there. Apart…

Smog is making me cough and I feel my eyelids smart and redden. High-rises are swaddled in a soupy haze…

The Liberals must be doing something right. The Left are re-skilling themselves in the art of mocking Australian values and…

I’m an unashamed Archers fan. But for the first time in 50 years I’m exasperated by the storyline. A fortnight…

Most mornings, if I’m not too hung-over, I go for a run around Ruislip Lido — a mile there, through…

Yes Alex Renton Last week some 20,000 children under the age of 14 packed their bags to return to boarding…

Sebastian Gorka is a big man. He has a powerful handshake, a deep voice, and a serious goatee. He’s also…

This election was won two days before it was announced, on Easter Sunday. Theresa May put out an Easter message…

Emmanuel Macron is going to be the next president of France. I know people are saying Marine Le Pen isn’t…

Coming out of a celebratory dinner at a Montparnasse brasserie after topping the poll in the first round of the…

Better access to education. Tax cuts for anyone in the struggling middle. More affordable homes, and more money for the…

 Kenya I met Dr Tom Catena in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains — the site of an African war and famine few…

Pippa goes public Church of England lawyers ruled that the public must be allowed to attend the wedding of Pippa…

When Trevor Phillips stood down as chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, he had served nine years. His…

When launching the Scottish National Party’s election campaign, Nicola Sturgeon said the word ‘Tory’ 20 times in 20 minutes. For…

Consequential Sir: Appreciated very much Michael Davis’s article ‘Gay Marriage Notes’. It should be mandatory reading for many of our…

Home Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, cheered the United Kingdom by promising four new bank holidays for the whole country…

President Vladimir Putin, who still supports Bashar al-Assad in Syria, needs help if he wishes to be seen as a…

Is capping domestic energy prices an equitable way to help the ‘just about managing’, or an electoral gimmick with a…

Why are men so much more likely to be interested in trains than women? I believe this to be a…

Considering that their party is expected to win by a landslide, the Tory spin doctors sound unusually panicked. They are…

Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I don’t remember the BBC running a documentary 100 days into Barack Obama’s first…

With Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen through to the final in France, people of a conservative disposition might feel…

How did the cross, from being such a loathsome taboo that it could scarcely be mentioned, change into an image…

Go into any high street bookshop and find the European history section. There’s usually a shelf or two on France…

Jon McGregor’s first novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, a surprise inclusion on the 2002 Booker longlist that went…

Lisa McInerney found a brilliant way to turn heads and hone her craft as the ‘Sweary Lady’ behind the ‘Arse…

Perhaps the least necessary piece of advice ever given to a Hanif Kureishi protagonist comes in 2014’s The Last Word.…

‘What makes the Red Man red?’ the Lost Boys asked in Disney’s Peter Pan (1953). According to Sammy Cahn’s lyric,…

Southern trees bear a strange fruit in Laird Hunt’s seventh novel, a dark historical fiction filled with dreams and visions…

Thirty years ago, Russell Davies wrote a weekly sporting column in the New Statesman. It proved unsustainable and was soon…

This book, according to its author Gabi Martínez, is ‘a non-fiction novel’. It tells the story of Jordi Magraner, a…

On 11 May 1937, at the Gare St-Lazare in Paris, Ernest Hemingway said goodbye to a friend who was leaving…

It’s been going since 1956. The 62nd season of the Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Kiev, Ukraine, starts…

These days, Aubrey Powell is a genial 70-year-old who can be found most mornings having breakfast at his local Knightsbridge…

Lady Macbeth, which has nothing to do with boring old Shakespeare beyond indicating a certain archetype (huge sighs of relief…

Herbert von Karajan established the Easter Festival in Salzburg 50 years ago with a production of Die Walküre that is…

Cairo is deceptively calm, says Egyptian film-maker Mohamed Diab. ‘People were so scared from the fighting in the streets that…

It’s 500 years since Martin Luther pinned his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, sparking…

The other day I had a very dispiriting conversation with a TV industry insider. It turns out that everything you…

There is some surprise that after all these years Ray Davies has turned his attention to America. He is the…

Just before Peter Donohoe played the last of Alexander Scriabin’s ten piano sonatas at the Guildhall’s Milton Court on Sunday,…

The Adèsives were out in force at Covent Garden last Monday for the UK première of their hero’s third opera,…

Christopher Hampton’s 1968 play The Philanthropist examines the romantic travails of Philip, a cerebral university philologist, forced to choose between…

Any of us can forget little things on leaving home in a hurry. To the chagrin of Mrs Oakley, who…

Last week we played round four of the Gold Cup. I had eagerly looked at the email to see who…

Polish grandmaster Akiba Rubinstein was one of the strongest players never to win the world title. Up to 1914 he…

Black to play. This position is from Belsitzman-Rubinstein, Warsaw 1917. How did Rubinstein finish off? Answers to me at The…

In Competition No. 2995 you were invited to submit ribald limericks as they might have been written by a well-known…

Clockwise round the grid from 16 run the titles of four works (4,4,9,6,1,5,3,5,3,4,6) by a late great 3 (two apostrophes)…

The HEADWORD (26) ‘bail’ appears six times in CHAMBERS (1D). Its different meanings include CROSSPIECE (1A), BAR (25), FRAME (36),…

Q. New colleagues invited us to lunch but didn’t warn us that the clippings had not been cleared up from…

Cafe Football is in the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, east London, a shopping centre with a faulty name. It…

Twenty-five years ago this week, Los Angeles was burning because of Rodney King’s beating at the hands of the fuzz,…

I went to a barbecue. Everyone was patient and well disposed towards the silent, depressed, two-toed sloth in their midst.…

‘What are you laughing at?’ asked my husband in an accusing tone on Monday morning last week as he unloaded…

Every so often comes a moment that can set the history of sport on a different trajectory. I believe we…

My heart soared when I first heard the phrase ‘progressive alliance’ in this election campaign. Not the reaction you’d expect,…

With so many last-straw moments to choose from in my house-moving experience, it is a close call to pick the…