It seems like yesterday – last September, in fact – that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrived at Number 10 Downing…

Recently, an issue arose that was a milestone in public affairs. It surfaced in a speech by Justice Ian Jackman,…

Universities then and now

But the King of the North’s honeymoon will be brief

Investors are abandoning Australia

They rarely achieve political goals

If only the United States had been allowed to keep the King

The rhetoric of intergenerational fairness is a front for multigenerational theft

Baby, it’s cold outside

Chalmers seems determined to learn from Keating the hard way

It’s no secret that the royals struggle with relatability. But every so often, they stumble upon a PR masterstroke, almost…

Power, when it is gained and lost, is transferred in stages: the actual, the visual and the constitutional. The latter…

Clarissa Eden famously declared that ‘in the past few weeks I have really felt as if the Suez Canal was…

I t won’t be much of a consolation to Keir Starmer but I too was overwhelmed by the responsibilities of…

‘Is there ever a holiday so heavenly that one is not counting down the days?’ a friend texted me last…

The Spectator was there at the founding of America. George Washington had six copies of the original 18th-century Spectator at…

As I scribble these words on a train to London, I’m wearing a lightweight Italian wool suit, a shirt from…

Try as I might, I cannot think of an animal welfare issue that is more misunderstood than the survival of…

Prime numbers It looks as if Britain will just miss out on having seven prime ministers in the space of…

The usual blindfolds, handcuffs and gags were slapped on live news and discussion programmes last Thursday, including me and my…

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, stood outside 10 Downing Street and said that he would resign as leader…

Welcome to the cabaret, Andy Burnham. Last year, the editor of this magazine wrote about ‘Weimar Britain’: the fear that…

David Hockney has died, and there has died with him an artist whose work has given those of us who…

An irresponsible drama Sir: Britain is faced with a fabricated panic which has prioritised personality over policy. Keir Starmer has…

The British constitution is an admirably flexible thing, so I would not claim that Andy Burnham’s leadership campaign, and the…

Andy Burnham has not yet entered No. 10, but the Conservatives and Reform are already preparing for the possibility of…

Once again the question occurs: ‘Why do they want it?’ Keir Starmer held a very important role in the legal…

Every twist in the winding road of our politics brings a latest thing to say. These wisdoms usually survive a…

If I were Andy Burnham, I’d be terrified about the inheritance Keir Starmer has left. Yet instead of stepping gingerly…

The passing, aged 100, of the former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, prompts thoughts about shifting tensions between politicians…

John Foster Dulles was forever going on about ‘boldness’ and dynamic change, but his limitations of perspective and philosophy become glaringly obvious in this latest biography

In a luxurious French villa, a man lies dead, shot with his own gun – and his wife and son become suspects. But new information emerges every time the scene is reviewed

For centuries, the wary neighbours have been united mainly in their opposition to the West – but is there now a new dynamic between the global powers?

Tempers boil over when nine-year-old Frank, his mother and siblings go to stay with an aunt on Exmoor in the blistering summer of 1976

Even such a key figure as Adam Smith believed that we would reach economic fulfilment before turning to the ‘real problems’ of nature and human life

The revenue derived from the international fair of 1851 helped fund the V&A, the Natural History and Science Museums and many other ‘Albertopolis’ institutions

With the continent now unbearably hot, these magnificent temples of swimming are experiencing a welcome revival, says Tom Fort

By his late thirties, the great poet of the Holocaust had succumbed to clinical paranoia, in which every aspect of daily life was saturated with evil significance

It’s a bit odd in its way that a fair fraction of the more or less British theatre we watch…

If you’ve tended to think Rik Mayall was both very funny and quite annoying, it turns out you’re not alone…

The Old Vic presents an eccentric new version of David Mamet’s ultra-masculine play, Glengarry Glen Ross. Director Patrick Marber populates…

Choral church music is at its most effective when it’s embedded in the liturgy as it was designed to be,…

I miss the New Labour years, when the government gushed money at cultural initiatives and Britain, previously a backwater in…

My granny used Spode willow-pattern crockery for everyday use. There was another grander service for Sunday lunch, also blue-and-white chinoiserie:…

Arriving in Oslo, the Barcode District is unavoidable. It is so named because its blocks are laid out like dominos…

Grange Park Opera has acquired a new chandelier for its theatre at West Horsley; a jumble of foliage and fairy…

Measuring tobacco consumption is dirty work, but somebody has to do it. The antiseptic image of the government statistician has…

The word of the moment is undoubtedly ‘monocultural’. In her take-no-prisoners speech at the National Press Club Pauline Hanson said…

Heat and dust, plus nonsense. If the high temperatures had arrived earlier, the England cricket authorities could claim that their…

When it comes to home cooking, we’re obsessed with optimisation. Today this manifests itself in reels on Instagram offering a…

Comp. 3455 invited you to supply some local response (in prose or poetry) to the absence of Glastonbury Festival, which…

As seen in the New World What are the vibes of Rupert Lowe? That’s the question on my mind as…

Q. I work at a magazine and am occasionally (and perhaps with increasing frequency) sent articles that strike me as…

Whisper it if you must, but it looks as if Gianni (‘Today I feel gay…’) Infantino might have got it…

My son Charlie sat his final A-level paper last week and the significance of this has only just sunk in.…

The importance of Royal Ascot can never be overstated. It was beautifully summed up by His Excellency Mansoor Abulhoul, the…

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna I know that, as the heat intensifies, you want me to write about the highly trained nudists…

‘We need to get into bed and watch a really good Poirot,’ I said, for I had given him such…

We were driving to the V&A summer party, windows down, scent of jasmine floating on the liquid June air, prospect…