Australian diary
My bladder is still fighting the NSW State Election. It is 5am and for the past six weeks this has…
Consider this…
Saving scientists, bureaucrats & the Great Barrier Reef Did you know that Christine Milne was Vice President of the International…
Consider this…
Saving scientists, bureaucrats & the Great Barrier Reef Did you know that Christine Milne was Vice President of the International…
Spill Bill?
The major problem facing the Labor party today is one of logistics: how do you get rid of a floundering…
Australian notes
I have over the years passed up many an opportunity to hear Keysar Trad in the flesh. Publicist, poet, media…
Swing time
Labour and the Tories are going to take as much of the vote as they have at any election since the 1980s. And yet they seem resigned to a hung parliament
Portrait of the week
Home Tony Blair, the former prime minister, opposed a referendum on membership of the EU. In a speech at Sedgefield…
Barometer
Plus: Tips for picking a Grand National winner; and the difference compulsory voting makes
Before Dad’s Army
From ‘Our Home Guards’, The Spectator, 10 April 1915: There is nothing of the national picnic; or of playing at soldiers…
A Scottish revolution is coming, and everyone’s losing their heads
It seems that nothing will dent the SNP’s appeal – not even the fact that the Tories are counting on them
The jihadi bride and her astonishing dad
He blamed the police for his daughter travelling to Syria, never mentioning that he took her to Islamist rallies
Original sin makes us better people. I wish Muslims believed in it
If you can believe yourself without sin, you’re more likely to cast the first stone
I went looking for a used car – and found my inner boy racer
Meeting the Golf V6 Four Motion was like being propositioned by a supermodel
Switch over to the Greek debt drama: the final episode must be coming shortly
Plus: Advice on cashing in your pension; Allen Sheppard, Thatcherite convert; and my Nicola Sturgeon regret
Ed dawn
He’s not an out-and-out ideologue. But he is indecisive, full of strange ideas about business, and convinced that he’s a man of destiny
The Miliband agenda
There will be tax rises to suit every taste. But the people he’s expecting to pay will probably just leave
Fringe benefits
The eccentric candidate represents the best of British bloody-mindedness. Long may he stand at the back
The Catholic crack-up
If the battle over communion for the remarried doesn’t die down, one side or the other may take drastic measures
The age of the Skype Dad
Is a video call an adequate substitute for a seeing your children in person? Some judges seem to think so
Grand National Notebook
What it feels like to wait for the start at Aintree; and my tip for the general election
That unmistakable touch of Glass
Philip Hensher revels in the smallest details of the composer’s memoir, while admitting he is no fan of the music
