When we say the drama surrounding Arthur Sinodinos’s dealings at Australian Water Holdings brings back memories of Watergate, we do…

Until recently the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement was on its last legs in Australia. Few Australians had heard…

A rabbi, a Catholic priest and an Anglican minister all gathered for afternoon tea. No, it’s not the start of…

My one-time nemesis continues to confound his critics, but there is a danger he will try to accommodate them

New Zealand’s PM is overwhelmingly popular, yet he stands to lose this year thanks to a shocking electoral system

Dame Gina Rinehart — for services to coal transportation, journalistic freedom and family law, we confer upon you this country’s…

Our film industry, in its insecurity, is underselling itself

Can my religion be reconciled with free expression? The answer is yes

Once, campaigners and charities tried to fight social evils. Now they just tell us about them

Simon Stevens may make more difference as chief executive of NHS England than anyone has yet realised

It’s ‘the language of human rights’, says François Hollande. Not in Africa it isn’t

Why losing this province could be the making of Ukraine

Birmingham's £1 billion settlement on 'comparable jobs' makes outsourcing look very attractive

It's not the idealistic, innocent city you might walk through at first. It's more interesting than that

Once you've decided you can't afford a big stick, it doesn't matter how loudly you speak

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that inheritance tax ‘shouldn’t be paid by people who’ve worked hard and saved…

I had a slight shock last week, while listening to Desert Island Discs. The admirable nurse Dame Claire Bertschinger had…

Plus: pensions after Osborne, and the best places to live past 100

Television science is just catching up with the ancients

Why we need a free press Sir: As bereaved parents and (to borrow from some signatories of last week’s advertisement)…

The Budget made clear how much stands between him and No. 10

Plus: Sir Peter Tapsell on appeasement; Roy Jenkins's vague Europhilia; and being kept up by the call to prayer

Duncan Weldon's past - as a Labour adviser and elsewhere - doesn't affect his ability to do the job

Modesty is not a sign of weakness

Nuclear terror made me the man I am. And now it’s keeping us from a pointless war with Russia

Plus: Business rates and the North/South divide, and Mark Carney’s new men at the Bank of England

A review of John Campbell’s biography of Roy Jenkins. The liberal reformer may have been snobbish and self-indulgent, but he was also a visionary

A review of George Saunders’ award-winning book of short stories Tenth of December. Distinct, troubling, funny: Saunders is a worthy winner of the Folio prize

A review of David Van Reybrouck’s Congo: The Epic History of a People. This panoramic history of a wronged nation is energised by first-hand testimonies and the author’s eye for arresting human detail.

A review of Lincoln Paine’s The Sea and Civilization. A learned and deeply researched global view of maritime history

A review of Keep Britain Tidy and Other Posters From the Nanny State, edited by Hester Vaizey. The voice of welfare Britain was intolerably bossy – but some of the graphics are beautiful

A review of Mark Harris’ Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War. The brave irrational filmmakers who brought the war home

A review of Patrick Bishop’s The Reckoning. This biography of the Zionist freedom fighter (or terrorist, depending on your view) Avraham Stern is compelling stuff.

A review John Lucas and Allan Chatburn’s A Brief History of Whistling. Sheepdogs, Star Trek and the Guanch people of La Gomera: there's a serious side to whistling. But it's still incredibly annoying

There is a story told of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister speaking with his Treasurer, Bill Hayden. It is late…

The bard did not give his female characters pivotal roles — but some of his contemporaries did, as the new RSC season shows

Ray Cooner’s caper Two Into One is like eating a pound of cheesy Wotsits, while Jon Fosse’s The Dead Dogs is like spending a night with five suicidal depressives

The National Portrait Gallery brings together a vivid collection of Great War portraits

From Manet and Degas to the Himalayas via Peru, painter Julian Cooper has journeyed around a fair bit for his art. His latest show focuses on Cumbria’s rocky outcrops

Twenty Feet from Stardom is the kind of documentary you won’t want to end

The Linbury Studio Theatre’s new commissions are hit and miss, while a musically focused new production of Ariodante at the RAM hits the spot

Breath-taking feats from the leads steer Kings of Dance night away from the trite and circusy

The popular TV drama gives a vivid idea of how people might have behaved in the Middle Ages – which is brutally

A 20th-anniversary celebration. Plus: the joy of the 15-minute radio short

Charts, maps and tables: the British Library shows off its fact-rich publications in this small, thoughtful and free new exhibition

It's too sunny a day for a long conversation with Frank. But now my knee's gone twang

It's back to Plan A with dear Darcy – perhaps with your help

Why do supermarkets insist on moving everything about? Are they just keeping the staff on their toes?

The cremation of my friend Michael on a large pyre of fever-tree logs

You’ve probably read about the English Bridge Union’s attempt to get bridge reclassified as a sport rather than a game…

As the World Championship qualifier (aka Candidates tournament) approaches its final rounds in Khanty-Mansisk, it is worth emphasising the Everest which…

White to play. This is a possible variation from Mamedyarov-Topalov, Khanty-Mansisk Candidates 2014. The black king is rather exposed in…

In Competition 2840 you were invited to provide an extract from the autobiography of a modern-day celebrity, ghostwritten by a…

The unclued lights (two must be paired) are of a kind, verifiable in Brewer.   Across 10   Details from Britain…

Each letter of each solution and each unclued light has to be represented in the grid by its numerical position…

In New York, the facade of success is all-important. Brits do it differently

We buy houses like we buy diamonds. That’s why they’re so stupidly expensive

Plus: The truth about royal banquets, and a ruling on Mother's Day

The problem of innovation and tradition – and a young chef who solves it

The progress of another flipping Americanism