Martin Niemöller’s famous post-World War II quotation is as poetic as it is heart-breaking, as insightful as it is terrifying.…

If last ditch Remainer attempts to block a no-deal Brexit fail, our head of state, already seen to have aided…

It’s been a long time away from home in Tasmania. I arrived in Rome in early July to teach Latin…

LNG is the new coal With the media spotlight focussed on activists, the Greens and even Pacific nations complaining about…

A new form of child abuse? In early May I wrote on the work of Professor John Whitehall, Chair of…

Alan Jones is wrong. The case of the Sri Lankan family whose deportation has been stalled illustrates what people smugglers…

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has two Bills at hand to clobber the anti-conservative ABC. The first would force it to…

In the Land of Oz, when Labor apparatchiks follow the yellow brick road  to the end of the rainbow —…

I’m a mediocre guitar player. I’ve also said 12 lines in a one-act play. Neither of these activities gave me…

Why is Australia being left behind on climate change? I don’t mean left behind in the sense of not doing…

Boris Johnson has already decided on his election message: vote for me and get Brexit, vote for anyone else and…

This is one of the most crucial weeks in modern British history. We have a prime minister and cabinet who…

Supplies of Brexit invective are now almost exhausted. While the Prime Minister is denounced for denouncing Remainers as ‘collaborators’, his…

A general election looms, the outcome could go almost any way and those who normally offer themselves as experts are…

If truthful reporting risks increasing tension between communities, should it still be published? Do journalists have a social duty to…

Next year I will begin my fifth decade as a working journalist. As a writer, as an executive — and…

‘Why would anyone want to destroy something so beautiful, then stuff its poor lifeless body to keep as some kind…

As newlyweds in our late twenties, my husband and I decided to move from a crime-ridden (if trendy) London postcode…

As you glide in to land at the airport outside Algiers, the landscape resembles that of Tuscany: a coastal plain…

‘Barristers’ speeches vanish quicker than Chinese dinners, and even the greatest victory in court rarely survives longer than the next…

The next general election will have been precipitated by, and will inevitably be fought over, Brexit. Yet it will also…

Home The government was defeated by 328 to 301 on a motion to take over the business of the House,…

My parents gave me a subscription to The Spectator in 1984, when I was 11. When I was 12, I…

Sir Philip Pullman, tweeting that thoughts of hanging the PM came to mind after the decision to prorogue parliament, later…

A Monday poll? The government was considering a general election on 14 October — a Monday. This raised eyebrows because…

Helping the homeless Sir: The number of rough sleepers in one of the richest countries on the planet is surely…

If you are a journalist covering politics this year, every moment is a bad moment to take a holiday. I…

It is all beginning to feel like the closing scenes of the 1980 spoof comedy film Airplane! In particular the…

You know that awful, gnawing, depressing feeling you’ve got right now? The one that notices how shockingly early the sun…

Of all the stains on the reputation of UK banks, the PPI scandal is surely the most shameful, the most…

Amedeo Modigliani thought Nina Hamnett, muse, painter, memoirist, had ‘the best tits in Europe’. She fell 40 feet from a…

In early paintings such as ‘Man with a Thistle’ (1946), ‘Still-life with Green Lemon’ (1946) and ‘Self-portrait with Hyacinth Pot’…

In June 1940, MI6’s new man, Bill Stephenson, ‘a figure of restless energy… wedged into the shell of a more…

Madeline Stevens’s debut thriller, Devotion (Faber, £12.99), might more appropriately have been titled ‘Desire’. It’s a riff on that old…

As a fully paid-up, old-school cricket tragic, I astound myself that I have read almost no Neville Cardus. How can…

Why does a man join the army? The answer was probably more obvious in the 18th century than now, but…

In the early 2000s, Yekaterinburg was in the grip of a major heroin problem. For Yevgeny Roizman, ‘Russia’s vigilante king’,…

The great bomber pilot Guy Gibson had a black labrador with a racist name. This shouldn’t matter, except Gibson loved…

I loved this book so much I was appalled. Why, when bookshops are stacked full of memoirs by authors who…

At the Villa Pignatelli in Naples there is an exhibition by Elisa Sighicelli: photographs of bits and pieces of antiquity…

It’s such a relief to turn on the radio and hear the voice of Neil MacGregor. That reasoned authority, his…

How did the police ever solve any crimes before CCTV? That was the question which sprang to mind watching the…

The Secret River opens in a fertile corner of New South Wales in the early 1800s. William, a cockney pauper…

The figure is back. Faces stare, bodies sprawl, fingers swipe, mums clutch, hands loll. The Venice Biennale was full of…

Only four women pianists have recorded complete cycles of the Beethoven piano sonatas: Maria Grinberg, Annie Fischer, H. J. Lim…

Grade: B+ Get the razor blades out, Ms Misery is back. Only the truly affluent can immerse themselves in such…

Scarborough is a small British film but it will give you a very big headache. Its subject is teachers who…

John Howard and Tom Stoppard have something quite wonderful and rare in common: they are both members of the Order…

Romy Somerset is the sweetest, nicest young girl in London. She’s also my goddaughter and I remember, during her christening…

These new tablets that will save or at least prolong my life have unpredictable side effects which only now, a…

We are the only Brexiteers in the village. That, at least, is how it feels. Out they come, the far…

Benjaminised Acol, better known as ‘Benji Acol’ — and its variant ‘Reverse Benji’ — is one of the most commonly…

Ding Liren, the Chinese grandmaster, has scored a career best in the Classical time limit section of the Grand Tour…

Black to play. This is from Carlsen-Ding, St Louis 2019. The black pieces are converging on the white king but…

In Competition No. 3114 you were invited to submit estate agents’ details in the style of a well-known author.  …

1A (four words) and 44 (four words) are quotations from the first verse of a poem (in ODQ). Five remaining…

Fats WALLER (5), who has been called ‘THE BLACK HOROWITZ’ (40/37/1A), was born in NEW YORK (28) and died in…

If there is to be an election before we leave the European Union, some kind of non-aggression pact between the…

Feeling depressed about politics? I hope not. Politicians don’t shape the world: they are the furniture movers, not the furniture…

Q. We have near neighbours in the country with whom I would not wish to fall out for all sorts…

The Camelot Castle Hotel is a pebble-dashed late-Victorian excrescence on a cliff. It overlooks the ruins of Tintagel Castle. A…

It was most unlooked-for that a king should ally with Whig politicians to seek parliamentary reform, but that was what…