Is there a credible conservative case for voting Yes to same-sex marriage? This critical question has been addressed by, among…

If you have never been to Helsinki, put it on your bucket list. But, go twice. Once in summer for…

According to ancient legend, Alexander the Great was born on the day that the second Temple of Artemis at Ephesus…

Defenders of the constitution have our work cut out for us. It seems that every day brings a new, novel,…

If you are not worried about the state of free enquiry in universities around the Anglosphere then you are probably…

Why are so many company directors diverting their energies into pushing publicly-owned corporations to take up controversial social and political…

My local council – Yarra City – is a grab-bag of inner-urban ‘brie and chablis’ lefties from central casting. It…

Everything and anything to bring Australia down Will our elites succeed in bringing Australia down, just as Argentina and especially…

When the Chinese family who have a café in the small town near me put a sign in their window…

It is rare nowadays to see someone pull out a half-finished tapestry from their handbag and get on with their…

My name is Katherine and I’m an intern at The Spectator. What does that say about me? If you had…

 Berlin ‘Capitalism is armed robbery,’ reads the graffiti on the subway wall, but here in Berlin, German capitalists are doing…

James Cracknell, the athlete turned anti-obesity campaigner, was the subject of sniggering and derision in April when he said that…

 Paris A rat’s not called a rat for nothing, and — as we are repeatedly told — we are never…

I received a sad letter this week: Steve is back in prison. Each day the mail comes down to the…

Environmentalism has gone too far; renewable energy is a disaster; scares about pesticides and chemicals are horribly overdone; no, the…

The good news is that Theresa May has dropped the threat to withdraw universal free school meals. Thank God (and…

Odious Sir: It is typical of the sloppy zealotry of your Australian edition, which is so at odds with the…

September is my time of year. Summer is all very well if you’re one of those golden-haired, long-limbed types who…

For Church of England vicars who worry less about what they will preach on Sunday than whether there will be…

More or less a million One in 79 Britons is now a millionaire thanks to property price rises. The word…

Before he died, the former Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, reassured his diocese that he was ‘at peace and…

Home On being asked if she meant to lead the Conservatives into the next election, due in 2022, Theresa May,…

Nearly all Tory MPs now agree Theresa May should stay on as Prime Minister. She must get the party through…

It is late in the evening. You’re in a bar. You’ve had quite a bit to drink but you are…

Arguably it was Robert Peston’s breathless reporting of trouble at Northern Rock on the evening of 13 September 2007 that…

It’s right that some children are taken into care. One case in point is that of Ayeeshia-Jayne Smith, the toddler…

It’s awful, but the surname Rausing (once synonymous only with the Tetrapak fortune) now summons up a terrible stench in…

In W.B. Yeats’s ‘Meditations in Time of Civil War’, a testing allusion emerges amid a scene of nightmare: Monstrous familiar…

Every so often a monster comes along. Here’s one — but a monster of fact not fiction, over 700 pages…

If you had to choose one book that both typified spy fiction and celebrated what the genre was capable of…

It’s odd, when you think about it, that mathematics ever got going. We have no innate genius for numbers. Drop…

As naturalist, educator and writer, John Lister-Kaye was for many years a voice in the wilderness. In 1976, when nature…

Milan Kundera has said that Homer’s Odyssey was the first novel. I’m not so sure — the verse kind of…

What is it about Victorian murders that so grips us? The enduring fascination of Jack the Ripper caught the imagination…

Theatre buildings are seriously interesting – as I ought to have appreciated sooner in the course of 25 years writing…

What makes for meaningful political protest? In regimes where ideology was taken seriously (such as the Soviet Union or America…

From 1945 to 1992 the Cold War was the climate. Individual weather events stood out — the Korean War, the…

The two Proms concerts given on consecutive evenings by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra were well planned: a short opening work,…

Grade: A– There are plenty of websites where fans try to discern, without any success, what in the name of…

Port Talbot, on the coast of South Wales, is literally overlooked. Most experience the town while flying over it on…

The starting point for Taylor Sheridan’s crime-thriller Wind River is explicitly stated at the end when the following words come…

As Classic FM celebrated its quarter-century on Wednesday with not a recording but a live broadcast of a concert from…

I had planned to review David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s new Channel 4 sitcom Back without constantly referring to their…

A new orthodoxy governs the casting process in Hollywood. An actor’s ethnicity must match the character’s. If you extend this…

These are good times for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Chief Conductor Davis Robertson announced a glamorous 2018 Season. The Board…

On 15 September 1888 Vincent van Gogh was intrigued to read an account of an up-to-date artist’s house in the…

‘First performance: Vienna, October 3, 1880’ declares the programme for Opera della Luna’s new production of Johann Strauss’s The Queen’s…

In Competition No. 3014 you were invited to submit a love poem written by one contemporary politician to another.  …

Q. Some rather flashy new neighbours of ours — I won’t mention their names as his will be familiar to…

I had always thought that to go ballistic was the same as to go nuclear, metaphorically. But the ballistic figure…

There was an entirely forgotten leftist called Allen Ginsberg, a so-called beat poet (surely an oxymoron) who once produced a…

I expect you’ve already noticed it, but in case you’ve been living in a cave or an economics faculty for…

Aren’t the Irish supposed to be lucky? The Irish open team are having no luck at all at the moment.…

The overall scores of the exceedingly strong combined rapid and blitz tournaments in St Louis were as follows: 1. Aronian 24½;…

Black to play. This is from Kasparov-Navara, St Louis Blitz 2017. White has just given what appears to be a…

The unclued lights are of a kind. Elsewhere, ignore one apostrophe.   Across 2    Means to call poor chaperone about…

A Ambition, A Aorist, B Battledore, C Caret, C Cashed, C Coact, C Coalman, C Cuttoes, D Dioxan, D Disaccharides,…

Stefano the Albanian turned up in a brand new Audi off-roader, cutting quite the dash. He looked older, with some…

‘Have you ever thought of having some colour put in, love?’ said Julian as he shaved my neck with a…

I spent Monday morning being taught how to use a shotgun at E.J. Churchill, a shooting ground in High Wycombe.…

After the heat in Greece, the Alps are cool and green and very comfortable. My sensei Richard Amos is over…