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“... Merdle, or Trollope’s Melmotte. Even Disraeli reckoned that capitalism of the sort that came to Britain with William of Orange (‘Dutch finance’) was detestable: it had resulted in ‘the degradation of a fettered and burthened multitude … made debt a national habit … credit the ruling power … introduced a loose, inexact, haphazard and dishonest ...”

“... undertaking that even Carlyle might have thought displayed commendable industry and endurance (Ian Campbell, who provides this final volume with a graceful introduction, first joined the team in 1964). The unusual decision, taken at the outset, to combine Carlyle’s correspondence with that of his wife has paid off handsomely. As Rosemary Ashton observed ...”

“... deal tougher, because if the 1950s are famous for anything, it is for being dull. Not as dull in Britain as in Eisenhower’s America, but dull nonetheless, not to mention smug. It is not surprising that Peter Hennessy should call his monumental history Having It So Good, nor that Dominic Sandbrook should call his equally monumental recent history of the ...”

“... Three hopes​ or dreams have played important parts in modern progressive politics in Britain in the decades after 1945. The first is the dream of the social-democratic equivalent of the philosopher-king. This expresses the hope that even in contemporary mass democracies a figure will emerge who can work the political machine and at the same time embody intellect, sensibility and liberal values, someone who can win power and then exercise it in the name of reason and enlightenment ...”

“... on a potential TV series.) I suspect the book he really wanted to write was a social history of Britain as seen through its subcultures, but these days books need hooks, and that’s where Mod comes in. Or rather, where Mod goes out, because rather than looking again at the rich and paradoxical details of each mod-ish stage, Weight is always pushing on to ...”

“... politics, at risk of falling away between the widening divides of right and left. (A twelfth, Ian Austin, has left the Labour Party, but not joined the group.) They are not all of them unloved creatures, crawling out of obscurity: Luciana Berger, Chuka Umunna, Chris Leslie, Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen and Sarah Wollaston are in varying degrees familiar to ...”

“... the decolonisation of Africa or opposed the Suez invasion in a famous editorial that described Britain and France as gangsters. What I remember were the things that made us laugh: the column by Paul Jennings that had a tongue-twister about ‘tuskless rustics eating crustless Ruskets’; the strip cartoon by Jules Feiffer; the witty reviews by Kenneth ...”

“... its invocation of Drake and Nelson, the grip of the Royal Navy on the popular imagination of Britain is relatively recent, dating from what Peter Padfield refers to as the country’s ‘Navalist awakening’ in the last two decades of the 19th century, when the Admiralty’s dogma that ‘the best guarantee for the peace of the world is a supreme ...”

“... who were allowed to stay on by the British and who are cited by Ms Peters as a key example of Britain’s pro-Arab bias in allowing illegal immigration, were in reality Jews – not Arabs. This is unmistakably clear from a reading of the report. Hope Simpson says: ‘it is probably sufficient to maintain the present practice under which the ...”

“... in their own way and in their own time, than the Sinn Feiners of this century? And when Ian Paisley accuses the British Government of treason and treachery, to what, precisely, is he proclaiming his allegiance? As any reader of Tom Paulin’s timely collection of politico-literary pyrotechnics will instantly be made aware, even the word ...”

“... and combined with everyday life as broadcasting. It would be difficult to find many people born in Britain in the past forty years who did not grow up to Muffin the Mule or Thunderbirds or Dr Who, and for whom the television set has been other than a natural adjunct to existence ever since. It would be equally hard to find natives of fifty-plus whose ...”

“... It’s hard to imagine an equivalent to the Loi Taubira or the debates it has brought about in Britain or the United States; it’s hard, too, to imagine Toni Morrison or Caryl Phillips being asked to take charge of such matters. As Christopher Miller points out in The French Atlantic Triangle, in France ‘literature was one of the most important ...”

“... output, with the result that some of the strangest, most memorable, most oddly haunting films that Britain has ever produced fell within that period. The Wicker Man, Unman, Wittering and Zigo, Don’t Look Now, Death Line, Neither the Sea nor the Sand … Some of these were X-rated and some were AA, but all emerged during the fruitful, uncanny interval when ...”

“... also includes the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands: the hierarchy in this arrangement between Britain and its closest economic dependencies is clear. To suggest that the difficulties Brexit will create on the island of Ireland can be resolved merely by reverting to the CTA is to believe that the hierarchies of UK-Irish relations have remained unchanged ...”

“... 1974 and to depose the likes of Heath and Whitelaw from the Tory leadership. Anyone – including Ian Paisley – who helped maintain the minority Labour government in power was fair game. Thanks to Peter Wright’s revelations we are more or less familiar with what went on in this period, though it is important to say that Wallace was the first to make ...”