As we settle back for the unique delights of the Aussie Christmas, placing the pressies under the Chrissy tree and…

As Head Master of Robert Menzies Grammar, it gives me less pleasure than usual to report on the boys and…

Good trouble I arrive in Australia to feverish talk of a rebellion. There has been a ‘teenage revolt’. A mass…

I’m embarrassed. Last night I spoke briefly at a black-tie gala dinner of the Institute of Public Affairs. I must…

It is often said that England and America are divided by a common language, and you might as well throw…

In the beginning God floated the idea of creating Heaven and Earth. He was immediately served with an injunction by…

What does classical music, also known as art or serious music, do for us? The state spends vast amounts of…

Don’t go into the Christmas holidays and 2019 thinking the nightmare is over. True, Malcolm Turnbull is no more, at…

The recent news that the form of music known as Reggae is to be added to the Unesco world heritage…

Which is preferable: values or virtues? The question might appear overly academic and of little relevance but how it is…

There probably is some depth of yet-to-be imagined perfidy Malcolm Turnbull or his son, Alex, will descend to before the…

There is the feeling that after ten years of political failures and assorted cultural nonsense the community is yearning for…

While England was in the middle of tearing itself apart during the Civil War, Oliver Cromwell and his fellow puritans…

Philip Wilson should be a hero to everyone who cares about justice. With little encouragement beyond the determination to prove…

Imagine looking at a photo of a stranger and feeling in response, quite naturally, the sort of happy affection you…

I spend most of my time drawing politicians, trying to work out what makes them distinctive. The eyes, the expression,…

I’m not surprised that black people are still eight times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched…

There’s an old joke that the most dangerous position in the Tory party is the favourite for the leadership. The…

The most obnoxious advert on American television this Christmas season features a thirtyish man telling his wife he ‘got us…

There’s a Christmas poem of mine, written in the 1980s, that ends with the line ‘And the whole business is…

A decade ago, a publisher produced a set of short biographies of Britain’s 20th-century prime ministers, which I reviewed unenthusiastically.…

Just back from a few days in Rome — the perfect small metropolis for ‘street-haunting’, as Cyril Connolly described his…

None of us can predict the potential fallout from Brexit, good and bad. What began as a vote of confidence…

Christmas in our family seems to guarantee tears and tantrums as well as jingle bells and jollity. Indeed, in my…

 Washington, DC Donald Trump derangement syndrome works both ways. It makes the President’s enemies hate him so much they go…

Christmas books pages usually invite columnists to nominate their publishing event of the year. Well, here’s a corker: The Ties…

The physicists Marc Warner and Emanuele Moscato met Professor Carlo Rovelli, author of the bestselling Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.…

  Alexander McCall Smith   There is a painting in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art that I find…

Frank Field was given a standing ovation when he won The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year award two weeks ago.…

‘Wake up, boy! Wake up…’ My father was shaking me and I was confused because it seemed that I had…

I’m moving house, parting ways with my beloved friend Georgia. For eight years, the two of us have laughed madly,…

Saif ul-Malook greets me in the hallway of his daughter’s home. Pakistani hospitality dictates that a guest should not go…

Ihad completely forgotten about the letter. It’s not that surprising, as I’d received it in February 1981. I was 18…

I am writing from my home, Barquisimeto, the fourth largest city in Venezuela, which was, not so long ago, the…

‘Christmas Eve in Mayfair, Jeeves! There’s nothing in heaven to top it. Even with the terror of eleventh-hour shopping for…

It took three hours for cabin fever to set in. Last Christmas, snowed in at the Oxfordshire homestead, my brother…

Last Christmas, The Spectator set up an appeal — not for money to be given to charity, but for our…

January Four young men were stabbed to death in London as the New Year began. The Crown Prosecution Service was…

The nice French doctor looked beadily at the screen. There were the results of my tests, in irrefutable detail. They…

Crisis at Christmas MPs were warned that they might have to give up part of their holidays to deal with…

Around 1 ad a 14-year-old Jewish Arab girl called Maryam, almost certainly in Nazareth in Galilee, gave birth to a…

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë,  reviewed 18 December 1847 An attempt to give novelty and interest to fiction, by resorting…

Life in the borderlands Sir:  The Irish border question has grabbed political headlines this year, but spare a thought for…

Who should govern Britain? This has always been the most contentious question in British politics. Magna Carta, the Reformation, the…

Earlier this month, the Quorn and Cottesmore hunts took separate votes on merging. The Quorn voted for, the Cottesmore against.…

It is always a pleasure to watch Paris burning. On the surface a civilised country, but scrape a little deeper…

I arrived at Waterloo, half an hour before my train departed. Needing to buy a birthday card, I popped into…

I’ve cycled for primary transportation for 53 years. Accordingly, I’m not naive about the degree of resentment — nay, loathing…

It was late, and a friend and I were left to talk Brexit. He’s a keen and convinced Tory Brexiteer…

It’s that time of year again when I put aside my wonted snark and share with you a few of…

Are smartphones fuelling a pandemic of youthful anxiety and depression? That’s the question parents will wrestle with this Christmas as…

It was a surprise, on reading Speeches of Note, to find myself laughing and chuckling at the speech of a…

‘To have a father is always big news,’ according to the narrator of Sebastian Barry’s early novel, The Engine of…

I like a book where you don’t think you’re going to be interested in the subject, but then find it’s…

Little Toller Books, in Dorset, aims to publish old and new writing on nature by the very best writers and…

You may have read about this during the Iraq war. A group of local people approach an American position. A…

Awareness of German opposition to Hitler is usually limited to Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s attempt to blow up the wretched…

Ma Jian’s novels have been banned in his native China for 30 years and he has been hailed as ‘China’s…

‘Dark Star’ is a suitable enough title in itself, but the definition makes it a brilliant one: ‘A Dark Star’,…

It’s hard, in Britain, to imagine a popular museum devoted to a single poem. The Polish city of Wrocław hosts…

Grudges make the world go around, according to Sophie Hannah. They are ‘an important and fascinating part of human experience’,…

Between 1300 and 1900 few things were more dangerous than giving birth. For poor and rich, the mortality rate was…

Around 1970 I was labelled ‘Public Enemy No. 1’ by white South Africa’s newspapers for leading militant anti-apartheid protests which…

Kenneth Rose was gossip columnist by appointment to the aristocracy and gentry. He was, of course, a snob — nobody…

In 1956, after Penguin Classics had published 60 titles, the editor-in-chief of Penguin Books, William Emrys Williams, wondered: ‘How many…

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‘We had seen God in his splendours, heard the text that nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of…

This book, an excellent history of Christmas, made me think of a Christmas cartoon strip I once saw in Viz…

Earlier this year The Spectator published an article in celebration of Evensong — the nightly sung service of the Anglican…

When H.H. Asquith, as prime minister, visited Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, during the first world war, he found a vast…

In the early 1370s an elderly Scandinavian woman living in Rome had a vision of the Nativity. Her name was…

In landscape terms, the Fens don’t have much going for them. What you can say for them, though, is that…

Somewhere in the bowels of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is a portrait from a lost world. Its subject…

In this 200th anniversary of the birth of Mrs C.F. Alexander, author of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, all of…

The first thing Gary Kemp bought when Spandau Ballet started making money was a chair. He’s very proud of that…

So, Mary Poppins returns, and I was, of course, primed to be spiteful, as is my nature. Not a patch…

Not another Nutcracker, I thought on the way to the Opera House. Haven’t we had our fill of Sugar Plums?…

Sam Shepard was perhaps the gloomiest playwright ever to spill his guts into a typewriter. The popularity of his work…

Jimmy McGovern’s one-off drama Care (BBC1, Sunday 9 December) began with a loving grandmother called Mary having a lovely time…

Take yourself back to (or try to imagine) Christmas 1968; a year full of disturbances, dashed hopes and extreme violence…

Grade: A– 1898: two Parisiennes and a housemaid secretly invite each other’s partners to the Paris Opera ball and… c’mon,…

Most of us love Rome while still being a little overwhelmed by it. The Roman Empire’s geographical spread and duration…

Here we are, 41 years down the road, and I’m once again writing for The Spectator’s Christmas issue. This is…

At the turn of the century, I started a diary. I’ve mostly typed it on old typewriters, bashing out a…

Ebenezer Grayling sat busy in his counting house. It was a cold, bleak day at the Department for Transport. Big…

Laikipia, Kenya   ‘The End,’ I typed. The book that had taken me 14 years to write. I rose from…

The Scudamores are one of the bedrock families of jump racing. After being shot down and spending two years as…

The other day, I opened a Christmas card showing Santa carrying a sack full of presents, and was immediately reminded…

You don’t say In 2018, who said: 1. ‘I have the absolute power to PARDON myself, but why should I…

‘Remind me what incel means again,’ said my husband. There was no point, since he’d forgotten twice already. I suspected…

Last week I compared the Norwegian world chess champion Magnus Carlsen to a lurking crocodile, ready to grab its oblivious…

White to play. This is a variation from Carlsen-Caruana, World Championship (Game 11), London 2018. Carlsen set a small trap…

In Competition No. 3078 you were invited to submit a politically correct Christmas carol.   One of Donald Trump’s election…

Unclued lights (six of two words, one of three), correctly linked, make ten members of a seasonal set, one light…

ROUND THE HORNE (32/40/37) starred 6/37, 6/23, 1A, 14 and 8/13. The title suggested their other comedy show, Beyond Our Ken.…

It may be the end of the year but it’s also the end of some major sporting eras. Alastair Cook…

This used to be the busiest time of the year for me. If you do anything in public life —…

I admit I had a falling out with Fortnum & Mason a few years ago over its new brasserie on…

During the second Gulf war, simply out of curiosity, I found myself visiting the website of a giant American mercenary…

It is enough to drive a fellow to the bottle. I am not given to agnosticism. My view is that…

From Michael Fabricant MPQ. When I go for intimate meals at a restaurant with a friend, I am invariably asked…