Think back to November of last year. It had become widely realised by the public that the so-called hate speech…

  ‘Malcolm Turnbull is Jewish.’ This was one of the newer Palestinian banners held high at the anti-Israel, anti-Netanyahu rally…

All good things come to an end and in my case I am rapidly coming to the end of one…

As a man without a faithful atom in his body I am fascinated by the phenomenon of radicalisation; the alchemical…

The commentariat are almost unanimous that Tony Abbott should not have launched our book Making Australia Right: Where to From…

Benjamin Netanyahu’s historic visit to Australia, the first by an Israeli prime minister, has brought on to the streets the…

Most of the media just don’t ‘get’ Tony Abbott. They think he’s critical of Malcolm Turnbull because he wants his…

The visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given journalists and ex-politicians a handy platform. There has been a…

The recent debate stirred by claims that Islam is the most feminist religion (Q&A Feb 13, 2017) and Islamic law…

Poor Paul Nuttall. He seemed to have everything a cheeky by-election victor needed: the outsider vim, the accent, the cap.…

Pity the poor sheep. Every other animal has its champions. There are fox fanatics, dog obsessives, campaigners for cat welfare.…

Freud said ‘Love and work… work and love, that’s all there is.’ And ‘Love and work are the cornerstones of…

The ongoing war between Donald Trump and the Hollywood A-list has entered a new and unpredictable phase. Celebrity criticism of…

I love small museums, and the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin is a little gem, located in the neighbourhood once…

On 24 June last year, in the Georgian splendour of her official residence in Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square, Scotland’s First Minister…

In the audience-free world of TV, where ‘acting’ and visuals have become of far greater importance than the actual words,…

And the losers are… La La Land was mistakenly announced as winner of the Oscar for best picture before the…

A fortnight ago I got a taste of what being far too famous might feel like. A leak that I’m…

From ‘Sir Thomas Acland’s example’, The Spectator, 3 March 1917: In 1912 we discussed the idea — a favourite dream…

Camilla for Queen Sir: On reading Melanie McDonagh’s argument against there ever being a Queen Camilla (‘Against Queen Camilla’, 25 February),…

Home Sir John Major, the former prime minister, made a speech at Chatham House in which he called the referendum…

As Prime Minister, John Major was intolerant of opposition from within the Conservative party over the EU — memorably calling…

The marriage of the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse may not be stone dead but that’s the way to…

If the British establishment really wants to troll Ukip, then I suppose it ought to give Douglas Carswell a knighthood…

I’m cheering up about Brexit. The moaning has to stop. Why be downhearted and edgy when you’re confident of your…

Donald Trump has not lost his capacity to surprise: few would have bet on him starting his address to Congress…

The latest and perhaps most damaging accusation to be levelled at Donald Trump is that he likes his steaks well-done…

Chief Constable Simon Bailey, who heads Operation Hydrant, the police investigation of ‘non-recent’ child abuse cases, now says that paedophiles…

Like his Pulitzer Prize-winning first novel, The Sympathisers, the stories in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees are set largely among…

The history of an army is essentially the history of its deeds. The history of an army within an army…

On the Whitsun weekend of 1935 an art student called Denton Welch was knocked off his bicycle by a car…

The greatest of Bach’s 224 cantatas is BWV 109, ‘Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben’. Its subject — the…

In Delmore Schwartz’s story ‘In Dreams Begin Responsibilities’, a young man dreams he is watching his father and mother’s engagement…

Everyone knows what the Rorschach tests are. Like Freudian slips, boycotts, quislings and platonic friendships, however, it was long ago…

Reading Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet is a heady experience. You not only see, hear, know her characters — you can…

Gurinder Chadha’s modern comedies have fun with cultural divides. Girls kick footballs in Bend It Like Beckham. A gaggle of…

These days the world is experiencing an unprecedented overload of photographs, a global glut of pictures. More and more are…

Nothing pleased Iannis Xenakis more than a great big rattling storm. The sound of a thunderclap would have him running…

Why set a supremely great play to music? The Winter’s Tale, the play of Shakespeare’s that I love most, has…

At the third UK International Radio Drama Festival held last week in Herne Bay, entitled ‘And Let Us Listen to…

Here’s the bad news. One day you or someone like you will be shopping in a mall or enjoying a…

It’s every impresario’s dream. Buy a little off-West End venue to try out stuff for fun. Andrew Lloyd Webber has…

When I was at secondary school in the 1950s, we were taught about the significance of the 20th century’s Irish…

When the generals have lost heart and crept away from the battlefield it is hard for the ground troops to…

February is probably the most exciting and glamorous month in the bridge calendar. A couple of weeks ago, über-sponsor Pierre…

Nigel Short has distinguished himself by scoring 100 per cent, winning all six games, in the Bunratty tournament which finished…

White to play. This position is from Tabatabaei-Vakhidov, Aeroflot Open, Moscow 2017. White has sacrificed a piece for a powerful…

In Competition No. 2987 you were invited to supply a lesson in the art of seduction in the style of…

One unclued light is the origin of the remaining unclued lights (three of two words), individually or as a pair.…

The unclued lights are seven COMPOSERS whose surnames begin with A to G, along with the eighth beginning with H,…

My partner has become a recycling fascist. She checks everything I put into the bin. I received two bollockings today alone…

Ferdi is a café in Shepherd Market; I write about it only to comfort you, because you are not rich,…

Gstaad Back in the good old days a funicular used to take skiers up, bucking all the way and stopping…

All told, I find that in the last week I’ve slept with a Chinaman, three black women from the United…

I have long pondered the motive with which Michael Wharton, for long the author of the Daily Telegraph’s Peter Simple…

Shoot me if I ever let slip I’ve been mucking out with rubber gloves and a dustpan and brush. As…

A friend was at Twickenham on Sunday sitting not far from the Italian coaching top brass, Conor O’Shea and Mike…

When Kingsley Amis won the Booker prize for The Old Devils in 1986, he said that he had previously thought…