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“... to ideas for years until the money and the creatives could be married and a film born.The back office deity of that era was the seven-times-married Robert Evans, who ran production at Paramount for a decade from 1966, when the studio made The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby. The ghost ...”

“... given positions thought appropriate to the female and second-rate. With the possible exception of Northern Ireland, it is hard to imagine a worse job than minister for higher education during the campus unrest of the late 1960s or minister for prices in the mid-1970s with inflation in double digits. Williams’s performance in these roles was adequate ...”

“... in Moscow, and as a result of it 80 per cent of the Americans in Moscow who had booked to fly home for Christmas on Pan-Am flights cancelled their reservations. This was probably why there were relatively few passengers on Pan-Am 103 as it took off from Heathrow half an hour late on the evening of 21 December. No one has explained why a warning thought ...”

“... semi-federal structure denominated a union. Widely admired at the time and since, and not only at home, the constitution has become a touchstone of what for many are the signature values of India: a multitudinous democracy, a kaleidoscopic unity, an ecumenical secularity.There is always some gap between the ideals of a nation and the practices that seek or ...”

“... ambitions. By the time Macmillan became prime minister divorce was no longer a barrier to high office. His cabinets contained plenty of divorcés, most of whom presented themselves as practical men of business. But that didn’t mean that the Tory establishment was willing to treat divorce as a personal matter. It ...”

“... The brothers Harmsworth launched the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror while Scott was wrestling with Home Rule for Ireland and the Boer War. Later, as Lords Northcliffe and Rothermere, their proprietorial arrogance and political manoeuvring became a legend. As Scott approached retirement, Lord Beaverbrook was making the Daily ...”

“... this was the majority view. He said he spends his time counting down the days until he is sent home. After four days I’m beginning to understand how he feels. We’re supposed to be flying to Gereshk, the second biggest town in Helmand province, but there aren’t enough Chinook helicopters. We could drive there in forty minutes, but travel by road is ...”

“... actors were touring Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands and English was influential throughout Northern Europe. Industrially, too, there was progress, even if Nef’s ‘industrial revolution’ is too strong an expression. Mining output grew considerably and manufactures like armaments and the New Draperies, taught to Englishmen by immigrants in the ...”

“... spent the night, the village where, in the ninth century, a famous king had beaten the army of a northern warlord. I climbed a steep path to a high plateau and walked along dusty tracks. There was gunfire in the distance. In the early afternoon I rested on a hilltop, on the ramparts of ancient fortifications whose shape was outlined in soft bulges and ...”

“... spent plenty of time talking about devolving new powers from Westminster in order to create a Northern Powerhouse, but his most effective act of power-sharing was to transfer the burden of responsibility for deficit reduction onto councils, which account for around 25 per cent of total government spending. No other area of government has been subject to ...”

“... before Big Ben had failed, as it turned out, to bong in celebration of the UK’s deliverance (Northern Ireland only sort of), there were spots of disillusion already visible on the sunlit uplands.Five days before B-Day, Theresa Villiers, the environment secretary, standing in her wellies in a farmyard, told the BBC that the UK would not be importing ...”

“... of artworks he built during his 35 years at Netherne. This led me, some months later, to an office in Lambeth belonging to David O’Flynn, a consultant psychiatrist at the Lambeth and Maudsley Hospitals, and chair of the Adamson Collection Trust. We walked up and down the corridors of the clinic where he worked and ...”

“... to serve another five years, or even ten if current plans to change the retirement age of judicial office-holders go through.It is difficult for courts to hold government to account even when political leaders accept the fundamental need for legal standards. The New Labour leadership responsible for the Human Rights Act in ...”

“... province, the British military base at Camp Abu Naji was preparing for the night. Set at the northern end of the marshlands between the Tigris and the Euphrates, the camp is now abandoned and looted, but in May 2005 it was a busy centre of military operations. Amara has seen many reversals of fortune and opinion: it was once a hideout for anti-Saddam ...”

“... a meeting of irate Tory backbenchers in 1971. The MPs were unhappy about the BBC’s coverage of Northern Ireland, which, though fastidiously cautious, they deemed insufficiently patriotic. Swann’s line came from a draft, written four years earlier, of a report for the governors eventually published as Broadcasting and the Public Mood and intended to ...”