Australia

Gunboats are the humanitarian answer to Libya's refugee crisis

25 April 2015 9:00 am

More than a thousand migrants have died attempting to get into Europe over the past week, including 900 who perished…

A Father’s Day tragedy: what exactly happened when a car plunged into a reservoir in Australia in 2005?

7 March 2015 9:00 am

When Helen Garner, an award-winning Australian author, first saw the TV news images of the car being dragged out of…

International cricket must return to Pakistan (and my team went first)

15 November 2014 9:00 am

In a tiny courtyard just off the teeming alleys of Lahore’s old town, a young Pakistani boy in a gleaming…

Barry Humphries’s diary: The bookshop ruined by Harry Potter

8 November 2014 9:00 am

Do fish have loins? Last Tuesday, in a pretentious restaurant, I ordered a ‘loin of sea trout’. It looked just…

Kate Chisholm on what makes the BBC World Service so special

1 November 2014 9:00 am

‘Don’t take it for granted,’ she warned. ‘It’s one of the few places where you can hear diverse voices, different…

The Etonian peer who became an assistant to a Mexican commie

18 October 2014 9:00 am

The lefty hereditary peer has few equals as a figure of fun, in life or literature. The late Tony Benn…

Daft, and sensationally innocent: the Inbetweeners down under

The Inbetweeners 2 is as filthy as a teenage boy – and it's hilarious

16 August 2014 9:00 am

The first Inbetweeners film made £45 million at the box office, and was such an unexpected smash there was always…

The Australian literary icon who fooled her family

21 June 2014 9:00 am

There aren’t many places you can get shouty about Proust without losing your job. The Lane Bookshop in Perth, Western…

Warning: upspeak can wreck your career

15 February 2014 9:00 am

Upspeak can damage your career prospects

Germaine Greer's mad, passionate quest to heal Australia

8 February 2014 9:00 am

Like an old woman in a fairy story, Germaine Greer, now in her late seventies, has taken to lurking in…

It’s not just Kevin Pietersen. England needs a whole team of new heroes

8 February 2014 9:00 am

Englishmen used to be deported to Australia as a punishment. Now they get sent back to England as an act…

Portrait of Sheila by Cecil Beaton

Australia's entrancing Sheila

1 February 2014 9:00 am

The ‘dollar princesses’, those American heiresses who crossed the Atlantic in search of a titled husband, are familiar figures from…

Breakdowns, suicide attempts — and four great novels

18 January 2014 9:00 am

Among the clever young Australians who came over here in the 1960s to find themselves and make their mark, a…

Drink: The great white Burgundy disaster

4 January 2014 9:00 am

We agreed that it was the gravest crisis facing mankind. It has led to dashed hopes, widespread grief and a…

Matthew Parris: The secret Australia - and why I love it

30 November 2013 9:00 am

Nations seek their souls in the strangest places. We English, for instance, have illustrated ourselves to the world and to…

Charles Moore: Nelson has lost the battle to a fat, stupid blue cockerel

26 October 2013 9:00 am

I do not know whether the Greek gypsy couple accused of abducting a girl called Maria are guilty, but I…

Note to the opposition: Tony Abbott is not to blame for the bushfires

26 October 2013 9:00 am

 Australia One of the odd things about bushfires as we know them in Australia is the unlikely truces declared between…

Is the best Australian art yet to come?

5 October 2013 9:00 am

Astonishingly, the last major survey show of Australian art in this country was mounted more than half-a-century ago. Then it…

How Australia's Tony Abbott pulled off a great conservative victory

7 September 2013 9:00 am

By conventional wisdom, Tony Abbott should not become Prime Minister of Australia this weekend. He ought to be too conservative,…

The Spectator correctly predicted that Australia would regain the Ashes

31 August 2013 9:00 am

Australia have regained the Ashes, much to the dismay of the British side. But did the Spectator predict this might happen…

Conservative landslide in Australia: Tony Abbott will crush Kevin Rudd

24 August 2013 9:00 am

Sometimes only a cliché will do, especially when the subject is the Australian Labor party. Labor is holed beneath the…

Mourning Julia Gillard with the greatest wine ever to come out of Australia

6 July 2013 9:00 am

My Australian friend was in mourning over the removal of Julia Gillard, the country’s first female prime minister. She had…