It is the absence of political convictions that has landed the federal government in the Covid mess it is currently…

At The Spectator Australia, we go behind the news to tell you the truth, no matter how unpalatable it may…

A Guide to Understanding this Pandemic We are all living through the worst inroads on our freedoms and civil liberties…

Big government building projects aren’t always virtuous

Certain Australians would have us as China’s vassal state

Why I won’t be taking the vaccine any time soon

Car buyers don’t get net zero

Jacinda Ardern’s socialist disasters risk destroying the country

Trapped on Morrison’s Island

Lockdown hides incompetence and double standards

How I missed the Hancock story

Afternoon tea has gone OTT

Lockdown killed my mother – and thousands like her

Uncertainty is crippling our cultural life

Pigeon racing isn’t much of a spectator sport. Race birds are driven to the ‘liberation point’, where they’re released to…

Is anywhere safe for the Uighurs?

Don’t pity me for living in London

Merkel is leaving the EU in chaos

Excess demand Sir: Liam Halligan (‘The house mafia’, 26 June) treats us to an exposé of the shoddy products of…

Home A lively game of hunt the issue followed the resignation of Matt Hancock as Secretary of State for Health…

Aswitch of personnel at the Department of Health this week has brought a welcome change in the government’s tone. No…

Isolated cases Large numbers of people are still being ordered to self-isolate in spite of having been vaccinated — 137,560…

The delicious hypocrisy at the heart of today’s cancel fraternity is that it is strongly opposed to censorship. Romans grappled…

It turns out that if there’s one thing more expensive than making theatre, it’s not making it. Empty buildings haemorrhage…

We are currently house-hunting — please let me know if you have one going spare. We are looking for a…

Nicola Sturgeon depresses me and seems to be having the same effect on Scottish house prices. In a housing market…

Journalists filing to deadline are apt to dig only so deep when googling for statistics, which in themselves are sometimes…

Is Winston Marshall — guitarist, banjo player, composer of Mumford & Sons, and father of the west London ‘Nu-Folk’ music…

I was looking forward to my dinner at Daquise in South Kensington, a Polish restaurant that’s been there for ever…

The most difficult time for a new secretary of state is normally the first three months in the job. An…

The only criticism that can be levelled at For the Fallen by Paul Paffen is that it lacks the hard…

Antiquaries have had a bad press. If mentioned at all today, they are often derided as reclusive pedants poring over…

Leni Riefenstahl was a film-maker of genius whose name is everlastingly associated with her film about the German chancellor, Triumph…

True crime is having a moment: every day there’s a new documentary, book, podcast, or blockbuster film announced, detailing the…

Even by James Ellroy’s standards, the narrator of his latest novel is not a man much given to the quiet…

This pleasant volume, the author announces in the introduction, is ‘not a nature book, or even a travel book, so…

I’ve never been to Barcelona, but Rupert Thomson makes it feel like an old friend. The hot, airless nights and…

Whose were those feet in ancient time that walked upon England’s mountains green? That William Blake assumed his readers were…

Andrew Motion describes the inner turmoil of the neglected poet Ivor Gurney

For reasons I can’t seem to remember, I have read an awful lot of cricketing histories. The dullest, by a…

The epic story of the Antarctic voyage of the Belgica (1897-9) has all the ingredients of a truly glorious misadventure:…

Britain is certainly revving up when it comes to culture. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s defiance about social distancing for his new…

These days I don’t read many novels although occasionally I have to read one for my book group. Recently our…

Ken Burns made his name in 1990 with The Civil War, the justly celebrated 11-and-a-half-hour documentary series that gave America’s…

Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round has been heaped with awards: an Oscar, a Bafta, it swept the European Film Awards. And…

Rosie Millard is transported to the Impasse Ronsin, a tiny, squalid cul de sac in Paris’s 15th arrondissement that was once the centre of the modern-art world

When you think of Handel’s Amadigi (in so far as anyone thinks about the composer’s rarely staged, also-ran London score…

You have to hand it to Ed Miliband. After bacon sandwich-gate, he might never have eaten in public again, but…

Grade: A– The problem with Norwegians is that they are so relentlessly, mind-numbingly pleasant. Well, OK, not Knut Hamsun or…

Before the National Theatre produced Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood they had to make a decision. How could they stuff…

There are worse inconveniences than having to wear a face mask to the opera. But there’s one consequence that hadn’t…

The only time that the BBC has ‘emu-lated’ an Australian broadcaster was in the early Seventies, when it suspended its…

‘Muck-raking’ is an old journalism expression coined in the US around 1900 to describe two types of journalists: a) those…

I’m struggling to work up much enthusiasm about England’s progress in the Euros. I know, I know, Tuesday night’s victory…

Q. The other night, while hosting a house party, I was one of only three people still chatting by the…

I loved the Ford Mustang Mach-E which I had on loan for four days. It was gorgeous to drive, and…

In 1923 in Whose Body? we were introduced to Lord Peter Wimsey on his way to an auction where he…

‘The doors clap to, the pane is bright with showers.’ With ‘summer’ determined to do its worst, there is one…

Wimbledon is here at last, after its absence in 2020. What struck me watching the French Open on television a…

I have a confession to make. I did something I haven’t done for over 20 years: I went on holiday.…

1A, on 23 17, 41 1D 8 in this 31 was 21D. This anniversary announcement consists of eleven words and…

In Competition No. 3205, you were invited to supply a rigorous literary-critical analysis of a well-known pop song. Thanks to…

Twelve symmetrically disposed unclued entries comprise three pairs of Spoonerisms (an anagram of the title): POURING RAIN/ROARING PAIN, FRYING PAN/PRYING…

by Tom Johnson aka Doc   During the early spring of 1971, a package of eighteen unsolicited crosswords arrived in…

It’s a joy to watch a player like Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who can light a fire with his bare hands. Where…

The woman sat alone and stony-faced in the passenger seat of the car as it blocked the road. She was…

Kenya In March, Global Britain signed a new, post-Brexit trade deal with Kenya. This was a welcome agreement for my…

The village square is a long and pedestrianised oblong shaded along its length by massive pollarded plane trees. It’s known…

White to play. So–Vachier-Lagrave, Paris, June 2021. The queen on e7 can be taken, but Black’s last move was …Rd8,…