Once again a majority of Australian voters find themselves in the infuriating position of having their clearly established wishes frustrated…

I agree with Lucy Turnbull about Malcolm’s dinner with Clive Palmer. Her father Tom Hughes used to be in politics…

What can anyone do to change the world? Can any of us, for example, strike a blow that matters against…

I am a stickler for the rule that a London diary should start with a cabbie story, so… In a…

Ibsen would turn in his grave at this production of Ghosts

If  Scotland votes for independence on 18 September, it will be the end of Great Britain. And thanks to Pommie cynicism, selfishness and comic incompetence, it could happen

However much conservatives detest him, the former Liberal leader remains a formidable contender for prime minister

The PM’s tax changes mark a betrayal of his mentor’s legacy

Marine Le Pen has the centre-right in her sights. And Hollande has no clue and little hope

Notes from Normandy as the 70th anniversary approaches

A tipper truck dumped heaps of red sandstone for those without sin to fling at the women under their shrouds

To keep weight off you need to understand and control your diet. That’s the opposite of what happens at slimming clubs

Churchill’s youngest daughter did her country great service – in the war and after

Russia’s foreign policy has become a ‘Wizard of Oz’ mixture of fake grandiosity and real menace

It's more than an opera festival – great as that is

Plus: Why the Queen shouldn't abdicate

Home The government scrabbled together material for the Queen’s Speech, which promised measures to allow money to be put into…

Plus: A world of jetlag, my gym-rat season, and a brilliant new novel

Plus: Britain's favourite frauds, and what we think of the police

To find out, follow the career of general Marius

We need religion Sir: Roger Scruton (‘Sacred hunger’, 31 May) describes a reason, dare I say a ‘purpose’, for religion in…

The Ukip leader knows that his party needs more support to maintain momentum

It’s time to get out of Fifa — but we won’t

Plus: Why Juan-Carlos abdicated, and my wife's magnficent moth-counting

Or: how my best and nicest friends are to blame for long-term unemployment

All the other terrain on the political map has been fully occupied. Classical liberalism has not

Plus: A report to make George Osborne even more smug, and a transport project worthy of a William McGonagall ode

A review of A Strange Kind of Paradise: India Through Foreign Eyes by Sam Miller. The country provoked anger and wonder in equal measure

A review of New Selected Poems by P.J. Kavanagh, with a foreword by Derek Mahon. The poet who imagined heaven as ‘big rooms filled with laughing’

A review of Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims, by Toby Clements. The author’s pages are aflutter with the emotions of the Wars of the Roses

A Dutch cracker, a second-rate Harry Potter, a wonderful story of a problem horse and a gripping tale (promise) of the making of a French motor car

A review of Dirty Bertie, by Stephen Clarke. The rebuilding of Paris was partly about making it a capital for sexual tourism

A review of Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany, edited by Jay Jennings. Despite critical acclaim and a devoted fan base, the American author seems destined to remain on the sidelines

A review of In the Approaches, by Nicola Barker, a blurb-writer’s nightmare

A review of Field of Shadows: The English Cricket Tour of Nazi Germany, 1937, by Dan Waddell. This entertaining history includes some great myth-busting

A review of Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Meadow, by John Lewis-Stempel. An extended essay that mixes science, observation and history with a lot of love.

A review of Darkling, by Laura Beatty. This novel about two Marcher women separated by three centuries is masterly in its understatement

A review of The Cruel Victory, by Paddy Ashdown. The last days of the Free Republic of the Vercors sounded with ‘the screaming of unmilked cows and the rattle of the machine guns’

A review of Laughter in Ancient Rome, by Mary Beard. Roman humour may not have aged well but it’s still fascinating knowing what made them laugh

A review of Music Night at the Apollo: A Memoir of Drifting, by Lilian Pizzichini. The Southall underworld explored

‘Most of the time I feel like I fall short of what my ear is looking for’

Peter Phillips charts the rise and rise of J.S. Bach

Behind the scenes of the American video artist’s new installation 'Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water)'

Tate Britain presents a survey of nearly 300 works that Clark owned or admired

The film has all the emotional heft of one of those American daytime TV biopics. I highly recommend it

Plus: the Met ends its series of live broadcasts with a feeble La Cenerentola

Plus: some dazzlingly good entertainment from the Dutch National Ballet’s Junior Company at the Linbury Studio

Plus: a great play whose value to history it would be hard to exaggerate

Plus: A group of 11 year olds gather for dinner for Channel 4 and talk alcoholism and anomie

This fascinating glimpse into the Royal family archives might have been a little more generous

Russians uphold taboos we abolished years ago, but that doesn't make Putin an ogre

She took my hand and asked if I'd like to take some amphetamine sulphate. I said it would be a pleasant reminder of my golden adolescence

I see bare bricks and I start hyperventilating

Politicians only apologise for things for which they can't be held responsible. It's the same even in this case

Have you ever been told by an expert that a bid you’ve made is foolish, badly judged or plain wrong?…

The last great tournament to have been completed before the outbreak of war in 1914 was St Petersburg, which saw…

Black to play. This position is from Mieses-Alekhine, Mannheim 1914. Can you spot Black’s subtle winning move in this endgame?…

In Competition No. 2850 you were invited to invent proverbs that sound profound but have no meaning. This was an…

According to a quotation (in ODQ) by a person whose surname is an unclued light, an area of five letters…

Superfluous letters in definitions form the phrase HOLD THE FORT. Thematically created entries at 5, 10, 17, 19 and 38 are defined…

Did I choose to join the 99 per cent? Or was I always a member?

Most homes have surprisingly bad ‘interface design’. The new generation of thermostats is starting to change that

Plus: What to say when someone asks your salary

Some animals show definite signs of soul. That's no reason not to have the best possible dinner

Telegraph letter-writers may not, after all, know everything about etymology