Bank bashing is a national pastime in Australia and the proliferation of parliamentary inquiries into financial services – there have…

The Spectator Australia Electoral Reform Unit, working in secrecy behind its heavily fortified premises at Belconnen in the ACT, has…

Two weeks ago on this page I complained about how rarely mainstream Australian media uses the word ‘masculinity’ without the…

Refusing to accept the vote One sign of the collapse of political order in a country is the refusal of…

James Allan’s notes last week about unenviable aspects of Australian tennis certainly struck a chord with me. When in Sydney,…

Mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto have become the first major companies to publicly support the Uluru Statement from the…

A network of Green groups are mobilising our children for the climate wars

Are we fighting postmodernists with one hand tied behind our backs? Intellectual battles are the cognitive lifeblood of a healthy…

The true extent of what we are all up against in the battle against Indigenous family violence has recently reared…

The next cohort of prospective undergraduates who plan on studying Australia’s history at university in 2019 should scrutinise the subject…

Western leaders who believe in state sovereignty and secure borders and who have the strength and courage to fight for…

When Nissan announced it would not, after all, produce its new X-Trail in Sunderland, this was reported as proof of…

What can the EU do to help the Britons out of their Brexit quagmire? Until very recently, the answer would…

‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’ asked the lady as she sat beside me in the caravan. The…

My husband, usually a cool customer, watched Free Solo from behind his fingers, sometimes jumping up from the sofa and…

I interviewed a prominent 1970s women’s liberationist recently and ended up discussing the sexual culture of her political heyday. ‘Everyone…

No one is in any doubt about the problem facing Britain’s railways. Over the past decade, rail fares have risen…

One of the few pleasures of advancing age is that, no matter how awful some looming catastrophe may be, you…

The woman on the path has come to a dead stop. She’d been shuffling along in that bunched-up posture we…

The British are said to be among the most generous people on earth. When it comes to ordinary people scraping…

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, went off to Brussels again to talk about ‘alternative arrangements’, for which parliament had…

‘There is no other country in the world, besides my own, whose way of life I like so much,’ enthused…

However much he is heroised by left-wingers, the Venezuelan ‘tyrant’ Nicolás Maduro must wonder what is in it for him.…

Fawning over China Sir: In reading your recent leading article on Huawei (‘Red-handed’, 2 February), I feel I should point out…

I am in a small minority in turning off the news when it is not about Brexit. The slow, agonising…

‘What would a Conservative manifesto say on Brexit?’ Many Tories consider this question a slam-dunk argument against an early election.…

 Washington, DC Donald Trump, the unity president — doesn’t sound right, does it? Trump is, we know, divisive. Under his…

Some medical experts claim that Lyme disease is worse than cancer. It’s not a competition, but I do know one…

Has ‘Jay’ Powell gone wobbly, or does he know something we don’t? That was the question being asked after the…

Somewhere deep in the water-thick layers of Time Song, Julia Blackburn says, funnily, that in Danish, ‘the word for book…

‘I should not have gone back to the island but I did it all the same.’ So begins the Swedish…

Kristen Roupenian’s debut collection, You Know You Want This (Cape, £12.99), comes hotly anticipated. Her short story, ‘Cat Person’, went…

The phrase ‘Shakespeare comedy’ is an oxymoron with a long pedigree, one which perhaps stretches back to the late 16th…

In 2016, after some unseemly back-and-forth between the Commons and Lords, it was decided that Acts of Parliament should no…

I once threw Tony Parker’s Lighthouse across the fo’c’sle of a ship at sea when I read that his characters…

Any memoir is a form of double-entry book-keeping, in which what has been lost is reckoned against what has been…

‘If your time ain’t come, not even a doctor can kill you’ — so goes the proverb that best echoes…

The king of crime fiction doesn’t need a crown and sceptre. Every page proclaims his majesty. James Lee Burke has…

It’s unusual for musicians to become writers. The trajectory of yearning is meant to be the other way around. When…

This is a fascinating example of a small genre, in which the author decides at an early stage in his…

Strange to think when you visit the Christian Dior show at the V&A that his time as designer was so…

It was odd listening to Jim Al-Khalili being interviewed on Radio 4 on Tuesday morning rather than the other way…

Hampstead has become quite a hit-factory since Ed Hall took over. His foreign policy is admirably simple. He scours New…

You might well expect a royal documentary on Channel 5 to be unashamedly gossipy. You might also expect it to…

All Is True is Kenneth Branagh’s biopic of Shakespeare’s last years and All Is Not Very True, apparently, which we…

The little-known painter Cyril Mann (1911-80) saw a lot from his council-flat window. Beyond the parks and trees and red-brick…

Janacek’s upsetting opera Katya Kabanova, which hasn’t been seen in the UK for some time, turned up in two different…

Grade: A– I’m here to make you feel old. It’s now nearly 20 years since the pleasing, laconic, Stones pastiche…

In 1721, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) made a rather grand job application to Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg. He…

Gstaad   Here in Gstaad there is no worker alienation. Nor are the rich especially worried. The talk is about…

Just before I left France, Oscar’s mum sent over a photo of Oscar in his classroom at school showing the…

‘I see you’ve got the posters up then?’ said the little lodger as she came home from work. She’s got…

Kenya   As the Union Flag was lowered during Kenya’s Uhuru ceremony in 1963, the Duke of Edinburgh turned to…

It can be hard to explain to people who don’t play bridge why it’s quite such a beautiful game. And…

A notable feature from the recently concluded elite tournament at Wijk aan Zee was the abject failure of former world…

Black to play. This position is from Kasparov-Kramnik, Dos Hermanas 1996. Kramnik played 1 … Qh1+ and soon won. But he…

In Competition No. 3084 you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘Breaking up is hard to do’.   From…

The first three or four letters of eight unclued lights (including one proper name) form a set said to be…

The LITTLE GENTLEMAN IN BLACK VELVET (4/8/16D) was a Jacobite toast to the MOLE (34) who made the molehill on…

The Guardian last week published a ‘we, the undersigned’ letter from 50 ‘artists of conscience’ urging the BBC to boycott…

At the same time as England’s rugby union players delivered a magnificent hearts-of-oak performance to humble a very good Irish…

Q. I wondered if you could advise me on a rather embarrassing situation please. I sing in my local Church…

Cakes & Bubbles is an unhappy woman’s restaurant. I thought it was a child’s restaurant, but I took a child…

Jan Morris in her book Oxford enjoyed the Greek lettering on the floor of the rotunda entrance to Rhodes House,…