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“... interviewee in advance, though she planned her questions and their order meticulously.Lawley asked Gordon Brown whether he was gay, ‘or whether there’s some flaw in your personality that you haven’t made a relationship’. Brown could have taken umbrage, but instead said: ‘I’m not married because I’m not ...”

“... disallow books by all practising politicians, were it not that he does include Roy Hattersley and Gordon Brown. Much the same happens with work by non-politicians. Two very good non-extremist studies, Anthony Quinton’s The Politics of Imperfection and Noel O’Sullivan’s Conservatism, appear, but they are almost alone. Norton and Aughey’s ...”

“... unlikely. Before making this forceful and cogent critical intervention, I thought it would be, as Gordon Brown would say, prudent, to check the Edinburgh phone book. There he is: J. Rebus. Fishily, he lives in Rankin Avenue. This might be a case of life imitating art – as Rankin points out, the site of one of the fictional Wolfman murders in London now ...”

“... the BBC, the press – colluded in presenting Cameron’s Rwandan adventure as a mistake. Would Gordon Brown, who has some power to act and a track record of serious intent when it comes to Africa, have fared any better if he had been in Rwanda and Cameron had been in London, chairing emergency committees while waiting for the flood waters to ...”

“... focus of – I can’t think of a better word than reverence. Speeches by David Blunkett and Gordon Brown last year signalled a sea change in Labour’s attitude on this question. It no longer appears to be Labour’s aim to foster a multicultural society in which no particular set of beliefs and customs may aspire to dominate. On the contrary, in ...”

“... of economics didn’t cease with the arrival of Clinton and Blair, though it changed form. Gordon Brown has been a particularly important channel. His decision to delegate to the Bank of England the power to set interest rates – arguably the single most crucial and most successful decision Labour has made – was underpinned by academic work ...”

“... Historians of any society have to learn to be wary of the accepted myths of their subject. Sometimes these bogus visions of the past are deliberately created or fostered by the governing group. Sometimes they come from an educated but perhaps unsophisticated middle class, anxious to gain historical sanction for its security and power. Sometimes these beliefs are the possession and creation of the working class ...”

“... makes Crossrail advocates happy. For all its faults, they say, Crossrail is good for jobs. When Gordon Brown gave the go-ahead in 2008 he announced that the project would create 30,000 British jobs. No one opposes the creation of 30,000 jobs (though these weren’t necessarily full-time or jobs for the duration of the project), but only a few of the ...”

“... in the exercise of our rights. This turns out, for example, to be the prime minister’s view, as Gordon Brown revealed in the speech he delivered at the University of Westminster last October under the title ‘On Liberty’. Milton is introduced, together with John Locke, as a key proponent of the belief that liberty essentially consists in ...”

“... Sam White, went to Flint Global, where his boss is James Purnell, who served as a minister under Gordon Brown. Flint claims to offer its clients – which include Meta, Amazon and Uber – ‘unparalleled insight into how Labour thinks and works’. The former home secretary Jacqui Smith was a specialist partner at the firm until last month, when ...”

“... beginning with the first non-stop transatlantic flight, made in 1919 by John Alcock and Arthur Brown. McCann reconstructs the perils of the journey, the freak weather and mechanical trouble, as well as the ‘genius and magic’ needed to see them through. The chapter is high on technical detail and period slang (plenty of Great Scotts and Tally-hos) but ...”

“... that could improve their chances of survival. Milman describes the case of the tiny, greenish-brown butterfly known as Saint Francis’s Satyr, which was believed to be extinct until a few thousand were discovered in the artillery range at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. ‘To the shuddering background noise of 181 kilogram bombs, the butterfly happily flits ...”

“... not an in/out vote but a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty. The fact that Blair and then Brown never delivered on this promise as the Constitutional Treaty turned into the Lisbon Treaty did not invalidate it. Yes, there was mounting pressure to hold a referendum and yes, previous pledges to hold one had not been honoured. But none of that made it ...”

“... in the first place. Like all good myths this was based on a half-truth: before the recession Gordon Brown had been a little less prudent than he should have been: he had been too optimistic about tax receipts, and followed a fiscal rule that allowed his progress in reducing debt in the early years of the Labour government to be reversed in later ...”

“... than fantasy tabloid) decisions concerning human rights that have emerged from the courts. Under Gordon Brown, Labour has even shown a tentative interest in extending protection into the realm of social and economic rights: its discussion paper on a bill of rights and responsibilities was widely mocked when it appeared early last year and the idea has ...”