Electoral ‘communities’
In the eyes of the bien-pensants, the election of Donald Trump and the vote on Brexit have brought democracy to…
Barometer
Bucks for Bucks Buckingham Palace is to be renovated at a cost of £369m, funded through an increase in the…
Diary
Washington DC Washington has been, for the past two weeks, indescribably depressed. When I walked into the deli down the…
War and votes for women
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 25 November 1916: We admit that before the war we should have placed, and…
Letters
Prisons and the public Sir: Your leading article on the sorry state of our prisons (19 November) was very welcome.…
Australian letters
Latham returns Sir: Wow; he’s back! And still giving it to the a…holes. A great column. Fantastic!Miles Hedge Kings Plains…
Portrait of the week
Home In his Autumn Statement, Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, against an expectation of increased borrowing and slower…
Laziness of the Human Rights brigade
During this year’s federal election campaign, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a piece by academic lawyer Ben Saul entitled ‘Human…
Drain Burley Griffin
The reason so many know-alls have had to scrape the lashings of egg from their faces is that once again,…
It’s not racism, stupid
Those who accused Bill Leak of racism over his cartoon and see racism in Pauline Hanson’s policies on migration make…
Screen grab
St James’s Palace. 1953. A dynamic Duke of Edinburgh is relishing a ding-dong with the antediluvian fossils of the Coronation…
You’ve lost that loving feeling
A United Kingdom is based on the greatest love story you probably didn’t have a clue about. I know I…
The beast in man
Ernest Hemingway loved going to the zoo, but not on Sundays. The reason, he explained, was that, ‘I don’t like…
Precious metal
Who could resist School of Rock? For me it was a chance to see a heavy-metal musical written by the…
Precious metal
Who could resist School of Rock? For me it was a chance to see a heavy-metal musical written by the…
All’s well that ends well
The last ten minutes of any Don Giovanni tell you more about a director than the previous two hours. Mozart’s…
All’s well that ends well
The last ten minutes of any Don Giovanni tell you more about a director than the previous two hours. Mozart’s…
Interest-free credit
When did you last experience a boring Sunday afternoon? If you’re over 16, probably not since you were last 16…
Interest-free credit
When did you last experience a boring Sunday afternoon? If you’re over 16, probably not since you were last 16…
Australian Diary
A warm muggy November evening in Canberra is threatening rain. At the National Library of Australia, a stone’s throw from…
Bridge
When I first started playing bridge, in the late Nineties, the Young Chelsea marathon was a continuous 24-hour tournament and…
Soft bigotry of the Left
Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson was partially correct the other day when, speaking at the launch of Troy Bramston’s new biography…
Soft bigotry of the Left
Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson was partially correct the other day when, speaking at the launch of Troy Bramston’s new biography…
Soothing mood music from Hammond and May disguises challenges ahead
Theresa May likes to give a kitten-heeled kicking to conference audiences, even when they are police officers or her own…
The pick-up artists who seduced a country
Many years ago, when I was a mere slip of a features journalist, I spent a weekend learning how to…
