It has taken quite a while indeed, but the Australian Building and Construction Commission Bill finally is passing into law.…

In the pretty medieval city of Wroclaw one highlight is the pierogis – the fat, soggy dumplings Poland is famous…

Is there any joint lesson to be learned from so-called Brexit and the unlikely-seeming elevation of Donald Trump to the…

It is, perhaps, a poor reflection of our times when a historian feels compelled to remind others that the Nazis…

‘And the union people crawled away…’- Billy Joel, Allentown   ‘Funny that Billy just endorsed Hillary. He must have forgotten…

‘Free beer for all the wharfies when the red revolution comes’   When Chris Corrigan’s 1998 stevedore revolution changed the…

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it is that the times are changing. When news of the…

Whatever else may be said of the late Fidel Castro, he has one distinction no-one can take from him or…

It was a warm tropical night in 1995 and Fidel Castro was playing the waiting game with Gareth Evans. The…

Inventor of the silky teabag, take a bow. You have achieved something that until now no one would have thought…

Ordinarily, the Supreme Court sits in panels of no more than nine. All 11 justices will hear the government’s appeal, to…

It is more than possible that before any Brexit deal is discussed, let alone concluded, the EU will have effectively…

Last month a rich, boastful alpha male savoured the greatest victory of his life in New York City. Almost no…

It’s the Brits wot won it. That is, the US presidential election was won for Donald Trump with the help…

It often seems like the European referendum campaign never really ended. Everything from budget forecasts to Britain’s Olympic performance is…

If you’ve missed the endless articles whingeing about pub closures, it must be because you’ve been too blotto to focus.…

Have you, on hearing the story of the princess who felt a pea through 40 feather mattresses, ever thought that…

For once, a cliché is justified: the government’s appeal to the Supreme Court next week really will be a landmark…

For months, now, a hunt has been on for the government’s Brexit strategy. Theresa May has quite rightly refused to…

Abnormal Sir: Just read Rod Liddle’s column ‘The new normal’ in a word ‘BULLSEYE’. Be careful with that spelling if…

As self-important comics fantasise about unseating Donald Trump with their wit, they should remember the great Aristophanes. In 424 BC,…

It is odd when someone you know becomes a world-famous Nazi. You may not recognise the name Richard Spencer, but…

From ‘The food shortage and how to meet it’, The Spectator, 2 December 1916: A rise in prices, if properly understood…

Home Paul Nuttall, aged 39, was elected leader of the UK Independence Party. He said: ‘I want to replace the Labour…

Autumn Budgets Philip Hammond announced that in future the Budget will be held in autumn rather than spring. This is…

‘We’re going to have not just consumers represented on company boards, but workers as well,’ Theresa May declared in July.…

I do hope it’s a terrible winter this year: a total bastard where everyone’s snowed into their drives and those…

Every morning, after the children go to school, I turn on my computer to check that Bana Alabed is alive…

Something for which to thank the government, at last. It is much, much more fun buying cigarettes these days. It…

It seems perplexing that François Fillon, now the Republican candidate for the French presidency, should be a declared admirer of…

A film critic friend, astonished that I had never heard of Shirley Jackson, told me to go and read her…

Maurice Sendak, no mean judge, observed that William Nicholson’s Clever Bill was ‘among the few perfect picture books for children’.…

Frantumaglia isn’t strictly a book by Elena Ferrante. Frantumaglia isn’t strictly a book at all. It’s a celebration of the…

‘Blessed are the cheesemakers.’ The line from Life of Brian is followed by: ‘It’s not meant to be taken literally.…

Garden design usually breaks out of its confines to become part of the general consciousness only in Chelsea Flower Show…

If there’s one shared characteristic of the so-called ‘new nature writing’ it is a failure, with a few notable exceptions,…

I Hate the Internet is not so much a novel as a wildly entertaining rant. Jarett Kobek is a self-published…

It’s the intellectual bromance of the last century. Two psychologists — Danny, a Holocaust kid and adviser to the Israel…

Chris Mitchell’s memoir of his life as a News Ltd journalist, then as editor, first of Brisbane’s Courier Mail and…

Last week you could have done some Christmas shopping at the Mossgreen and Sotheby’s art auctions in Sydney. You might…

Instant photography already existed long before Edwin Land, the ingenious inventor and founder of Polaroid, went for a walk with…

The bizarro concept of a ‘President-elect Trump’ came to pass despite the wishes, clearly stated on the stump, of the…

Robert Rauschenberg, like Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale, was a ‘snapper-up of unconsidered trifles’. Unlike Shakespeare’s character, however, he made…

Comfort and joy. That’s what the song talks about, and that’s what the classic Christmas movies deliver. Whether it’s Die…

Elvis Aron Presley departed this world on 16 August, 1977. Even if you delight in conspiracy theories and believe the…

As the dreaded season of goodwill approaches, the Royal Opera has mounted two revivals of pieces that are interestingly contrasted:…

‘We’re going to get lots of negative attention from environmentalists,’ he cackled, great puffs of blue-grey smoke emerging from the…

BBC1’s The Missing has been one of the undoubted TV highlights of 2016. Yet, even thrillers as overwhelmingly thrilling as…

An ice floe. Two anglers. Months to kill. That’s the premise of Nice Fish by Mark Rylance and Louis Jenkins.…

The unclued lights, as a singleton and four pairs with one unclued light doing double duty, are of a kind,…

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

It was the best hand I’d had all year — and what’s more, I picked it up while playing rubber…

Game eight of the World Championship in New York broke the deadlock of hard-fought draws in the first seven games.…

White to play. This position is from Rubinstein-Johner, Carlsbad 1911. How did Rubinstein gain a winning position with a standard…

In Competition No. 2976 you were invited to submit an extract of a speech in which a well-known figure from…

The unclued lights are provinces or areas of BELGIUM.  First prize C.R. Haigh, Hassocks, West SussexRunners-up Frank McDonald, Carron, Falkirk;…

Q. I don’t go to my club that often but the other day I found a letter there waiting for…

This is something to be said for starting to celebrate Christmas before the end of the grouse season. It provides…

Richard Spencer made the front page of the New York Times two days in a row last week, and earned…

Most people who die in Britain are now cremated — more than 70 per cent of them — but there…

My mother is a bore magnet. They travel from miles around to sit in the chair opposite hers and tell…

‘When I asked the bank,’ said my husband, ‘they were no help at all.’ My attention was distracted from his…

‘How was your week?’ I asked my friend as we rode our horses to Bookham Common. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Except…

Last week I was asked to give a talk about generation snowflake. This was at a breakfast organised by a…

Do any of us honestly have any idea how serious the Hillary Clinton email scandal was? I haven’t got a…