‘ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree,’ asserted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week in a…

I regret to say that this will be my last column, at least in this regular form. I am afraid…

Riding to work just seems obvious from this range: an easy 15 minutes from Fitzroy to the Southbank home of…

Increasingly, institutionalised childcare is being used to promote green and progressive agendas

My clairvoyant connection with Julia Gillard

Forget KPI’s and opinion polls - the only measure of a pollie is their Beer-factor

Islamic terrorism has found the perfect way to creep into our teenagers’ bedrooms

My clairvoyant connection with Julia Gillard

Brooks Newmark, revenge porn, and a heady brew of hypocrisy and narcissism

While the Commons voted to bomb, we were getting over the razor wire

Ask yourself how you would feel if your child started spouting hate-filled bile against homosexuals, women, Jews — anyone, in fact, who wasn’t a Muslim man

The island and the mainland are drifting further apart. But it may be Hong Kong that represents the true, rebellious spirit of China

I can't look at Hong Kong without thinking about how far the Chinese Communist Party will go – and how little we'll do to stop them

Accept liberal arguments for the convenience of people like me, and you threaten the foundations of the Church

Poetry, civilisation and the critical benefits of facing leukaemia

We’ve let the desert state face both ways on funding extremism

The city of the horse and carriage is gone. But some traces remain...

Theresa May's proposals go against our tradition of free speech, and set a dangerous precedent

Home The Commons, having been specially recalled, passed, by 524 votes to 43, a motion supporting ‘the use of UK…

Plus: A precious new friend, a great literary festival, and a reason to memorise a speech

...200 years ago. Plus: Who sexts, the deadliest borders, and why weather records always seem to be getting broken

From ‘Voluntary and compulsory service’, The Spectator, 3 October 1914: We do not suggest that the voluntary principle should be…

Degrees of ability Sir: Nick Cohen has written an amusing piece on PPE (‘Crash course’, 27 September), marred by lazy journalism.…

A surprisingly chipper party conference, and what comes after it

I don't agree with Jesse Norman's arguments about the Commons and the military. But the question he raises deserves more than a pat, pious response

Plus: nightwear visions of MPs in their PJs

Plus: Northern Rock’s charitable legacy in danger; and the news from Hong Kong

A review of Napoleon the Great, by Andrew Roberts. The immense collateral damage of Napoleon’s imperial ambition never gets the attention it deserves in Roberts’s biography

A review of Abducting a General, by Patrick Leigh Fermor, and Kidnap in Crete, by Rick Stroud. An exhilarating account of Paddy’s hair-raising kidnapping of a Nazi general that was ultimately of dubious strategic value

A review of Our Time of Day: My Life with Corin Redgrave, by Kika Markham. An autobiography stamped by an unflinching and humane candour

A review of The Soul of Discretion, by Susan Hill. There is little pure detection in the latest in Hill’s Serraillier series; the focus lies elsewhere

A review of Nora Webster, by Colm Toibin. Anyone who expects a novel about a bereaved wife with four small kids to emote wildly has obviously never read any Toibin before

A review of The Corridor of Certainty: My Life beyond Cricket, by Geoffrey Boycott. An egotistical look at the life and times of the greatest living Yorkshireman

A review of The Ash Tree, by Oliver Rackham. A certain understandable I-told-you-so huffiness drives this analysis of the death of one of our prettiest common trees

A review of Travelling to Work: Diaries, 1988-98, by Michael Palin. He leads a charmed life that I wouldn’t wish upon anybody

A review of Lila, by Marilynne Robinson. A book that makes you feel newly in love with the world

A review of Talking to Terrorists: How to End Armed Conflicts, by Jonathan Powell. He makes much of Blair’s success in Northern Ireland – but not all disputes are so soluble

A review of Churchill’s Rebels: Esmond Romilly and Jessica Mitford, by Meredith Whitford. Esmond’s bravery and Jessica’s wit make them riveting subjects

A review of My Grandfather’s Gallery, by Anne Sinclair. A portrait of an exceptional moment in French art – and its tragic unravelling

A review of Us, by David Nicholls. The novel’s comedy is the secret of its success

In a field which is often characterised by polemics and hand-wringing, Noel Pearson has emerged as both a considered thinker…

Mark Mason on an exhibition of NASA photographs that makes you forget to breathe

Just how much fun is it listening to all 650 of Schubert's songs?

The small works - the studies of foliage and sketches of landscapes - are the chief value of the exhibition

Plus: Bored to near-hysteria by ENO's Xerxes, Michael Tanner finds it hard to imagine what it must be like to be a Handelian

Plus: a masterclass in dramatic writing from David Hare in The Vertical Hour - if you ignore the predictable politics

That said, Ben Affleck's performance is more subtle than his all-American jaw might suggest

Digby Warde-Aldam is won over by a consummately psychotic Mark E. Smith at the Electric Brixton

Conductors like John Eliot Gardiner proved more durable simply by not sticking their necks out

Plus: Mats Ek's Juliet and Romeo at Sadler's Wells reveals the Swede is a piercing portraitist of women

James Delingpole on BBC2's Terror at the Mall, one of the most gripping and important pieces of TV any of us are likely to see this year

He was born into Australian ballet aristocracy but now lives in Houston. Stanton Welch is the son of Marilyn Jones…

The pain — and pleasure — of life up high

And chasing up the ghosts of Hemingway, Malcolm Lowry, Virginia Woolf and Jack Kerouac

But then the solicitor’s letter arrived...

I have high hopes for him — the time is ripe for a new approach to the political interview

The stars of Newmarket’s sunny Cambridgeshire

I don’t know about the only gay in the village but I am starting to feel like the last woman…

Recently Professor Jackie Eales gave a lecture in Canterbury on ‘Queenship in the Age of the Enraged Chess Queen’. (The…

White to play. This position is from Keene-Nunn, Surrey Junior Championship 1963. This game started with the Scotch Game opening.…

In Competition No. 2867 you were invited to add a final stanza to a well-known poem. Nicholas Stone imagined how…

The unclued lights are of a kind, verifiable in Brewer.   Across   1    Poet has overdose first (5)…

The unclued lights are abbreviations of seven English and one Welsh county, which themselves are inflected headwords in Chambers. (Consequently,…

He's not motivated by winning. He's trying to mess with David Cameron's head

What's wrong with a quiet round followed by a modest handshake and a gin and tonic?

Plus: Dealing with rude old acquaintances, and the tactful way to turn down a giant plateful

The food is unmagical; it is quite close to extortion

If he’s lucky, by having a carefree ancestor, rather than a careless one