Whilst John Howard struggled with his ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ promises, it may well be core and non-core values that end…

People seem to think I do not like the ABC. I can understand why some people hold this view. It…

Good advice from the (Anglican) Church of Ireland: ‘We now sincerely urge a spirit of generosity both from those for…

There was a big story last week. It involved ministers, the media and the long arm of the law. Coverage…

Gough Whitlam demonised the Vietnamese boat people.
We should be welcoming them to our shores.

The rise of the Greens threatens to take federal politics back to the turn of the century. The last century.

Republican monarchists

The 1967 referendum is fifty years old. And it achieved, er, what precisely?

Republican monarchists

Private military contractors have a bad name, but a great record against the Islamist insurgency in Nigeria

The left’s favourite economist on setting capitalism free

The snow is gone, but so are the designer-clad Russians and their bodyguards

International aid could be redefined to include some kinds of military intervention

Home A Bill to enable a referendum on whether voters wanted Britain to ‘remain’ in the European Union figured in…

Plus: Expat voters; how same-sex marriage has worked in Holland; and parliament’s least populous constituencies

If George Osborne and the northern cities want a model of how to interact, they should read inscriptions about Antiochus III

From ‘The National Government’, The Spectator, 29 May 1915: We do not suppose that the war, or the need for patriotic effort,…

Baume strikes gold Sir: It is interesting that the above competition between the two largest exporting countries is at last…

Also: will gay marriage eventually go the same way as asbestos, Esperanto and communism?

Another couple of wonderful Islamic discoveries really have me thinking

What’s the point of a religious tradition unless you believe that the majority can be wrong?

Plus: My pick for the next Greek PM, London property madness, and a path not taken

The best way to govern a country is through an educated aristocracy: Dominic Lieven’s provocatively old-fashioned view, applied to the end of Tsarist Russia

Meades takes issue with some of Barnes's speculations on the art that will and won't survive - but both agree conceptual art is dead in the water

Simon Armitage’s self-deprecation makes for a charming, funny account of plodding through too many combes on the South West Coast Path

Albania has come a long way in three decades — transformed from a Stalinist dictatorship into a functioning democracy —but it has been at considerable cost, says Will Nicoll

Plus: a semi-good, semi-wonky biographical play of Alexander McQueen at St James Theatre

Too much of the behaviour of the main characters is shitty – and too much of the script is stolen from Bridget Jones or Richard Curtis

Perry comes of age in Provincial Punk, a retrospective at the Turner Contemporary that confirms his place in the English oddball tradition

Plus: why do I find Fi Glover's Shared Experience series so depressing?

Forty years ago I predicted an imminent Mendelsshon revival; I’m still waiting. This month brought a false dawn; at the…

It’s not the one everyone thinks it is

Just send an account of your worst, funniest debacle when intoxicated

All the words we once knew will be replaced by those our smartphones suggest

Honeybees are meant to be on the way to extinction but no one’s told the bees of Northamptonshire

More and more jockeys are abandoning jump racing

If you live in or around London you can play a pairs duplicate every night (or day) of the week…

There are some odd opening moves in chess, such as 1 a3 and 1 g4. The former was used by…

Black to play. This is from Westman-Walther, Havana 1966. Black has the possibility of a discovered check against the white…

In Competition No. 2899 you were invited to write a poem commemorating the birth of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge. The…

A phrase, formed by four unclued lights, incorporates a definition of the other unclued lights and an indication of the…

The future is not for parties ‘playing politics’ (16 29 1A 15) is a quotation by Woodrow Wilson. 1A provides…

Her indignation about the leaked memo is hypocritical

History was made at the most civilised place on earth

Plus: Dealing with intrusive Americans; a snoring guest’s dilemma; teaching with a nicotine addiction

It’s a glass box within a glass box, suspended in an atrium

With almost everyone choosing to sing in terrible English, this year’s was a tough battle