‘Europeans routinely repeat “Never Again!” but their commitment is not to prevent another Holocaust—it is rather to prevent war at all costs’

‘Explaining why he prefers imported Chinese labour, the head of Zambia’s largest construction company said: “Here they are like the British. They have tea breaks and a lot of days off”’

‘The government has sensibly decided to give back to the Bank of England its old job of regulator. But a clutter of extra institutions and committees is being proposed, none of which is the real boss’

‘Naomi Zivotofsky and her husband are American citizens. Their son is a US citizen, born in Jerusalem. His passport gives no country of birth’

‘Do we still have an intellectual elite that reads, and writers to cater for it? In Germany, we have Merkur’

‘Forty years after the 1971 Immigration Act, the numbers arriving are unprecedented. We need a breathing space’

Despite the current success of England's test team, the county game is at an all-time cricketing low. It needs a dramatic overhaul

Emile Zola's novel L'Assomoir is enough to turn even the hardened drinker temporarily tee-total

Russian chess champion Peter Svidler's obsession with English cricket is such that he signs off his emails with "Strauss for Prime Minister"