In Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 cult movie The Conversation, Gene Hackman’s character Harry Caul becomes obsessed analyzing the precise meaning…

Where can the ALP turn? As the NSW election made plain, the Coalition occupies the reforming Centre and the Greens…

I have added a few days onto a London trip to visit my mum in South Wales, and as I…

What does Shorten’s submarines policy say about his grasp of the potential future threats facing our country?

The death-circus surrounding the Bali executions has faint echoes of a famous musical

The system is broken

Why does Gen Y have so little interest in classical music?

What are the implications for Australians of having a letter-writing, activist, trainee monarch?

There is something ugly about Australian cricket’s angry young men

Despite a tidal wave of prejudice and negativity, faith remains the foundation of our civilisation

This isn’t one of those I-was-lost-and-now-I’m-found sob stories; I wasn’t looking to be ‘healed’

The philosopher and novelist was right about immigration and education, 30 years too soon

Plus: An ambassador’s perspective; and Fidel Castro’s rule on a plate

War hero Jim Webb has the right record to take on Hillary – and to widen the Democratic coalition

As I was chased from the ticket barrier on to the train, I began to wonder what the inspector could be thinking

In the Valley of the Kings, pharaohs’ tombs that before 2011 required lengthy queuing are now easily accessible

They should be miles ahead given the state of the economy, schools, the NHS

Home The nation greeted with well disguised enthusiasm the beginning of the general election campaign after the dissolution of parliament.…

Plus: A golden age for TV interviewing, and the need for better spies

Plus: the most suicide-prone jobs, Stephen Hawking™ and which countries are keenest on the death penalty

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 3 April 1915: The chief obstacle to prohibition, as we point out elsewhere, is…

Plus: How to refer to Hitler's wife (if she's the daughter of a baron), vacancies for vicars, and a tipster's protest

They have a surprising amount in common

The more voters reckon a hung parliament is coming, the more likely it becomes – even if they’d rather have a majority government

In The Spectator of 21 March a column by Toby Young caught my eye. Discussing the pros and cons of…

The answer’s far from ‘obvious’ – or ideal – but I’d put a tenner on Gatwick

Pretty much every man I know under the age of 55 is on some kind of diet. And I think I know why

Reviews of Gallipoli by Richard van Emden and Stephen Chambers, and a new edition of Alan Moorehead’s landmark work of the same name

Anna Thomasson’s A Curious Friendship details the artist Rex Whistler’s shared fantasy land with the much older novelist Edith Olivier

It turns out that mental illness isn’t a new invention. Andrew Scull’s Madness in Civilization reviewed

They’re modest in scale, but can conceal a tendency to megalomania. Reviews of D.J. Taylor’s Wrote For Luck and The Boy Who Could See Death by Salley Vickers

Emily Rhodes reviews The Girl Who Couldn’t Stop Arguing, which our columnist assures us is not an autobiographical work

Honor Clerk reviews Julia Blackburn’s delightful Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske

Reviews of Judas by Peter Stanford and The True Herod by Geza Vermes, which turn an unflinching light on the villains of the Bible

Ysenda Maxtone Graham reviews The White Umbrella, a charming tale of a man who adopts a mistreated donkey

Pristine Classical's interventionist boldness may upset audiophiles, but their restorations are miraculous, says Damian Thompson

The casting is exemplary but the drama could do with fewer Grand Guignol gestures and more subtlety and darkness

Martin Gayford urges you to make a pilgrimage to Rothenburg ob der Tauber to see Tilman Riemenschneider’s limewood masterpiece

Plus: a new documentary about Robert Altman that’s disappointingly unAltmanesque

Plus: Hofesh Shechter offers a more politely apocalyptic vision than usual in his Royal Ballet debut

Plus: a static new play, Breakfast of Eels at the Print Room, by a playwright that many are hailing as theatre’s brightest hope - even though he’s 62 and not very good

Plus: a Radio 4 drama tackles the Trojan Horse scandal and the World Service talks to homeless asylum seekers

Why do actors now take centre-stage in all the serious debates of the day? And more importantly, why do we listen to them?

The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn was greatly loved by our generation and several before us. It is derived from…

‘Professor’ Martin Jarvis’s thesis that the wife of J.S. Bach wrote the cello suites is obviously rubbish — but so is the idea that Bach was a flawless genius

Plus: why BBC4’s Quizeum isn’t half as interesting or funny as the people presenting think it is

The most divine music ever accompanied by two bottles of Haut-Brion reduced me to an enchanted wreck

But for now, my first small step to an indigenous mindset was to piss in the nearest ornamental tub

Dorking is the real deal, sans dogging, sans new town, but you must be prepared to climb a hill or 17

Perhaps I am uniquely unimaginative and lacking in empathy, but I fear not

If no one will step forward then the BHA and Great British Racing must fund it themselves

Wednesday night is league night. Sacrosanct. I’ve missed only one in seven years and that was when my daughter was…

In Competition No. 2891 you were invited to think of the most boring lecture topic possible and submit an extract…

The unclued lights (including one of three words, one of two words, and one hyphened) form two thematic groups in…

Seven unclued lights are ANAGRAMS (23) of numbers. 2 (7A) + 11 (17) + 10 (40) + 16 (5) +…

The Tories have nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to the last parliament’s record on poverty

To understand just what a career slam means, look at who didn’t manage one

Plus: Dealing with men who want to tarmac your drive, and with friends who want to marry objectionable millionaires

In the James Bond film From Russia with Love there is an evil mastermind named Kronsteen. The character is in…

White to play. This position is a variation from Bronstein-Zilberstein, Tbilisi 1973. Bronstein has just given up a piece on…

Ernest Hemingway is to Parisian brasseries what Mickey is to Disney World; Edith Piaf — or Salvador Dalí — is Daffy Duck

A usage problem where the answer is inevitable – but no one seems quite ready to accept it