Twelve months ago, it all seemed a little too easy. Fix up Labor’s mess, stop the boats, scrap the pointless…

There have certainly been some changes in how governments go about their business. In the past, when trying to work…

Speccie Oz editor Rowan Dean called, sounding incredulous. His mother had just rung him. Radio 2GB said I was eloping…

It’s been a stellar year of award-worthy performances

Tony Abbott must do more than just rely on the Rudd / Gillard catastrophe that brought him to power

The quiet truth of politics is that it all comes down to the character and calibre of those running the show

Tony Abbott is determined to run a government along the lines of Hawke, Keating and Howard

Some Prime Ministers grow into the job - where others clearly did not

Some Conservative MPs are planning their careers on the assumption that the election is already lost

Douglas Carswell's defection gives others on the Tory right new leverage – and they're not afraid to use it

The International Development Secretary says her party needs to get back to Thatcher's message of aspiration for all

Secret official records contradict the stab-in-the-back myth that justifies Russian expansionism

Eddie is capable of living a fulfilling life, and if he’s a luxury society can’t afford then that’s not a society I want to live in

The 'mare nostrum' policy has acted as a magnet for boat people; the crisis is only growing

This campaign has brought back conviction politics. It’s been as invigorating as a seaside walk on a raw and windswept spring morning

Attitudes in this country are still tolerant. But current headlines give reason to fear that might change

This isn't some Italian Isle of Wight. It's an ancient cultural treasure with enough variety in landscape for a continent

European countries seem to think of their defence alliance as a means of getting security on the cheap. That won't work any longer

Home Britain’s terror threat level was raised from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’ in response to fighting in Iraq and Syria, meaning…

Lebanese life in the shadow of the so-called Islamic State

Plus: The scale of digital crime, and the right hotel for your global shindig

The real meaning of people power

From ‘The giving up of Louvain to “Military Execution”,’ The Spectator, 5 September 1914: Germany has dealt herself the hardest…

Advice for Cameron Sir: David Cameron once saved my life from a school of Portuguese man o’ war jellyfish, so…

Of course normal people can't be trusted to bring up children. They might be middle-class, or have the wrong views, or smoke

The reason there are so many acquittals is that juries reach ‘perverse’ verdicts when they are uneasy about the law itself

And if so, what was your justification for clicking on the headline above?

Plus: Another good job for a mother of three, and the battle of Boris Island

A review of Victoria: A Life, by A.N. Wilson. A superb new revisionist biography argues that it was only after her husband’s death that Queen Victoria found her true self

A review of Another Man’s War, by Barnaby Phillips. A book about courage and friendship that transcends time, distance and race

A review of The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell. This restless new novel is full of student satire and undercooked fantasy

A review of Gin Glorious Gin, by Olivia Williams. A diverting, if not remotely scholarly, history that charts the social ascent of this spirit, from dram shop to the Queen Mother’s handbag

Vincent Deary’s How We Are is crammed with ideas. William Leith can’t wait for the next two volumes

A review of The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It, by Owen Jones. The analysis is better when it is ideological rather than historical

A review of The Children Act, by Ian McEwan. The characterisation is scant and the writing poor, and he never gives religion a chance

Italy's car capital is also now home to a 55,000 sq m cultural gem, the magnificent Polo Reale

By contrast the work of Frank Dobson and Matthew smith pack a punch, as a new National Portrait Gallery exhibition shows

Plus: what’s the perfect encore?

Teatro Regio di Torino’s concert performance of William Tell was, by contrast, superb

And Nicole Kidman’s face looks like those leftovers you keep in Tupperware in the fridge

Comic potential is squandered in Southwark Playhouse’s Eye of a Needle, while Matthew Kelly gives Richard Bean’s Toast an unexpected layer of pathos and humanity

Plus: the pain of depression is far more powerfully felt when heard and not seen

… and A.N. Wilson, whose Return to Betjemanland (BBC4) was a lesson on how to make great TV

Ten paintings by Victor Tardieu depicting the pioneering work of first world war nurses are on show at the Florence Nightingale Museum

After a red-carpeted fanfare the Emmy Awards were announced last week in LA.  There is no hope for me; my…

In today's hothouse world of privilege and pretension there is no semblance of good taste

I envy young people packing their bags to go to university for the first time – though I waited a while before doing it myself

Perhaps I should work on my striptease act to get them to do it more often

Editing a magazine has always turned me back into a smoker; vaping is my only hope

The trainer Chris Wall is one to watch

One person who lets out a whoop of delight when I am on holiday is my saintly partner, Artur Malinowski.…

Despite occasional evidence to the contrary, I have persisted in the belief that the ability to play chess well indicates…

White to play. This position is from Polgar-Bareev, Moscow 1996. Neither king is entirely happy and in such situations having…

In Competition No. 2863 you were invited to recast a well-known nursery rhyme in the style of a well-known author.…

The unclued lights are connected by 33/23. One pair of unclued lights gives one context, in which two further pairs…

The four works were Waverley (anagram of 12/21), Kenilworth (15/8), The Talisman (29/2) and Ivanhoe (38/37) by SIR WALTER SCOTT (diagonally…

I suspect more and more that Isis fighters are motivated more by bloodlust than by ideology

Perfect your celebration, don’t sweat the League Cup, and learn to spit properly

Plus: Dealing with your ex-husband’s nits, and the terror threat to party invitations

When I wrote about the Famous Bavarian Village, people complained. I would now like to show you that I take such complaints very seriously...

One of the smaller things for which South Yorkshire police commissioner Shaun Wright might consider apologising