Exactly a year ago on this page and on our cover we denounced the Obama administration-sponsored United Nations Security Council…

Thanks to the announcement of the engagement of two foreign celebrities 2017 ended on a cheery note for many Australians.…

Delhi is smothered in a blanket of thick smog. Fierce dust storms in the Middle East have blown across the…

In the last few months, the concept of ‘Western Civilisation’ has received significant coverage in the Australian press. In the…

It seemed an odd place for a full-strength contingent of NSW police to set up a sobriety checkpoint, this long,…

President Macron marked the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement on climate change by convening a ‘One Planet Summit’ in…

Adam Smith warned on the criminalising of emotions – hate crimes – in the Theory af Moral Sentiments, published in…

A decision by Justice Elizabeth Fullerton is due imminently in the case of malicious prosecution brought by Gordon Wood against…

If there is one lesson the world should have learned from Iran’s ‘Green Revolution’ of 2009 and the so-called Arab…

This year is the centenary of the Armistice to end what Siegfried Sassoon called ‘the world’s worst wound’: the first…

What do Europeans really think about Brexit? Do they secretly admire our unexpected decision to walk away from all those…

Subtitles are taking over the world. It’s increasingly rare these days for a video clip to be free of those…

Angela Rayner is perhaps the only Labour MP who works with a picture of Theresa May hanging above her desk.…

Hedge funds have already spotted it: Jim Mellon’s latest book, Juvenescence, reviews the new science that will lengthen our lives…

The Taiwanese seem besotted with food. The National Palace Museum in Taipei has almost 700,000 objects in its collection, but…

Roberto the guide had promised us the most spectacular church in Central America — so why had he brought us…

There is a distinct nip in the air as I slide quietly from the riverbank into the water. November may…

As Sini harnessed up the huskies they were all yelping with excitement, but once we set off and the forest…

For some reason, I decided to go to the other side of the world for Christmas. I may never do…

Among the many new political maladies of our age, one has been left largely undiagnosed. This is Trump Derangement Syndrome,…

Home In a message for the New Year, as though it were an immemorial custom, Theresa May, the Prime Minister,…

Owing to the spectacular uselessness of Ticketmaster, my son missed out on his birthday treat, seats for Hamilton at the…

This year will be the 100th anniversary of some women over the age of 30 getting the vote, and for…

Did that happen? What psychics foresaw for 2017:— ‘Crash in euro, Denmark and Italy leaving the EU; North and South…

From The Spectator, 2 January 1847: The New Year opens for England with heavy clouds in the sky, but with…

A church for all people Sir: I enjoyed reading Ysenda Maxtone Graham’s account of debates in the Church of England…

The craze for cryptocurrency can be explained by a host of factors: the allure of getting rich quick; the attraction…

Since it’s the first week of the New Year I’m going to pretend the bad stuff isn’t happening and focus…

New Year’s Eve was certainly a day for celebration in the household of 53-year-old Jeff Fairburn, chief executive of the…

In 1932, the Daily Plainsman of Huron, South Dakota, ran a feature about a local woman convalescing in hospital. Grace…

While the short story is currently under-going one of its periods of robust, if not rude, health, its two dominant…

The late Michael Foot used to say that the first thing he needed to know about a new acquaintance was,…

The career of the photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank stands in direct antithesis to the characteristics of his native Switzerland.…

‘It’s a grand thing to get leave to live’, perhaps the most famous line Nan Shepherd wrote, is carved in…

At the close of the 1970s, I found a selection of postcards in an antique shop which had been sent…

Claude Debussy died on 25 March 1918 to the sound of explosions. Four days earlier, the Kaiser’s army had deployed…

Brad’s Status is a midlife crisis film starring Ben Stiller as a nearly 50-year-old man whose status anxiety is through…

It’s racing up the UK podcast charts, overtaking (as I write) the established favourites such as No Such Thing as…

It’s all about the rhythm. Hamilton is a musical that tells the story of America’s foundation through the medium of…

My third most fervent New Year wish — just after Litecoin goes to £20,000 and Jacob Rees-Mogg becomes PM —…

Judith Brett has written extensively about liberalism in Australia. The emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University, her output…

Gstaad When the snow finally stopped, the sublime, silent stars above made for dramatic viewing. Against silhouetted Alpine peaks, starry…

As I stood there, I was reminded of the man of no fixed abode who, several years back, aged 68,…

Reluctantly, I decided I would have to throw away the MRI scan of my head. I’ve hung on to it…

Jeremy Clarkson wrote recently about a day at Newbury. He declared: ‘Claiming that horses are different is like saying ants…

Well, I had a very merry Christmas thank you — and I hope you did too — but as usual…

It is traditional that in my first column of the new year I review the previous 12 months and select…

Black to play. This position is from Kasparov-Navara, St Louis 2017. How did Navara deal with Kasparov’s check? Answers to…

In Competition No. 3029 you were invited to provide a new year’s resolution (or more than one) in verse.  …

3 1A (eight words in total, one apostrophe) and 41 23 32 36 (seven words, including two accents) give two…

The unclued lights are former and current F1 teams.  First prize Ronald Morton, Basingstoke, HantsRunners-up Revd J. Thackray, Ipswich, Suffolk;…

Shortly after midnight on 1 January my phone began to vibrate repeatedly. Happy New Year messages from absent friends? No,…

One of the funniest passages of writing I have read in the past few years appears within the pages of…

Q. At my son’s school the boys keep a clandestine leatherbound book known as ‘The Bible’, a sort of Rogues…

It was a culinary triumph. My hosts do not spend much time in the UK, and are determined to entertain…

Writing about Meghan Markle and the Duchess of Cambridge in the Sunday Times, India Knight wrote: ‘I can’t help but…