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“... of feminism and the politics to which it has acquiesced. This is exemplified by Carol Gilligan and David Richards in Darkness Now Visible, as they seek to account for Trump’s rise ‘seemingly out of nowhere’. They tell an intricate psychological story, based on Gilligan’s earlier work on moral reasoning in boys and girls, about the ways in which ...”

“... considered sinful in their time: they are Rahab the harlot, Bathsheba who was tempting to King David, Tamar who coaxed her father-in-law – and even Ruth, who crept under the bedclothes of Boaz, her kinsman. Does not this suggest that Matthew wanted to show that Mary was descended from ‘sinners’? This is far-fetched. We are not convinced that Matthew ...”

“... before the levee at Holyrood, when he had worn ‘full Highland dress’, described by the painter David Wilkie as kilt and hose ‘with a kind of flesh-coloured pantaloons underneath’ and by a Lowland laird as ‘the Royal Tartan Highland dress with buff-coloured trowsers like flesh to imitate his Royal knees, and little bits of Tartan stocking like other ...”

“... supremo, Magnus Linklater, as well as by the two members of the Observer’s investigative unit, David Leigh and Paul Lashmar. I added my voice to theirs, urging vigilance and caution. To no avail, however – and perhaps understandably. On Saturday, 11 January 1986, Donald Trelford, the editor of the Observer, had spent a lot of time closeted in the ...”

“... stemmed from the basic nature of his approach. He tended to begin with urban agglomeration (what David Reeder in his useful introduction calls ‘accretive growth’), seen as a process of population concentration, with resultant shifts in the national rural-urban balance, together with related demographic changes within the two modes of life. From ...”

“... New Year visit to the Mallorcan villa of the BBC television presenter Kirsty Wark. More recently, David McLetchie, the Scottish Conservative leader, who had, naturally enough, helped to fan the flames of previous scandals, was himself brought down by ‘Taxigate’, which concerned his misleading expenses claims for taxis on supposed parliamentary ...”

“... Union movement, whose passivity when confronted with the infamous conduct of Foulkes, Haxell, Fraser and the rest of the Communist conspiracy devastatingly proclaimed a comfortable, institutional mediocrity of mind. This neglect placed between the Electricians and the TUC a two-stream gulf of guilty resentment, on the one hand, and rebarbative ...”

“... they made a brave show in resisting the loss of all but one of the American colonies. Led by Simon Fraser of Lovat, who co-operated with the Hanoverian government and so regained his father’s lands, the chiefs raised and officered a disproportionately large part of the British Army, and if it was a part given to mutiny, this came from the refusal of the high ...”

“... leader. Would he – could he? – perform the countless vital tasks that come naturally to David Cameron or Tony Blair: everything from how to comport yourself at the despatch box to the best way to climb out of a chauffeur-driven car, from how to use an autocue to knowing which pop band to choose on Desert Island Discs. If you don’t know which tie ...”

“... David Attenborough​ was born in 1926, the same year as Marilyn Monroe, Fidel Castro and Elizabeth II. He began hosting Zoo Quest on BBC television in 1954; not quite seventy years later, his latest series, Wild Isles, has just finished airing (it’s still available on iPlayer, or Amazon Prime for those outside the UK ...”

“... though 20th-century Conservatives have included a few Whiggish eccentrics. The Liberal Party of David Steel bears little resemblance to it, except in some residual link with religious dissent and the geographical periphery. The old-style Labour Party inherited some Whig nostrums, especially in foreign policy and constitutional matters. The Tory Party, on ...”

“... signalled by a chunky scarlet arrow, and accompanied by a caption such as ‘Cutting the grass at David Davis’s home is very expensive.’ The newly demotic Telegraph has exposed a lot of predictable wangles and fiddles, along with a very few cases of prima facie fraud, which may or may not stand the test of criminal prosecution. But it has used a brush so ...”

“... identified over time is not the same as a deep-seated cause. In delicious contrast, Hamish Fraser’s account of the rise of a consumer society (which took place at the very same time that Kirby and others see the British economy in decline) is good old-fashioned economic history at its best: it tells a story; it is well written; it is about real ...”

“... normal classic names: Simon, Mark, Peter, Andrew, Paul, Martin, Michael, Stephen, Richard, Robert, David. Girls’ names remained more modish: some Sarahs, Anns and Elizabeths and even some residual Marys, but also plenty of Janets, Jackies, Lisas and Debbies, who soared and plummeted through the bestseller lists in the space of a couple of decades, the ...”

“... considering those worlds inferior to the struggles of ‘the artist’. Janet’s ex-husband, Nick Fraser, whom she treated in the dominating, patronising, yet maternal way she treated most men – indeed, most people – was criticised by her for working on Newsweek and the Sunday Times and for co-authoring books on Eva Peron and Onassis. However, Nick, under ...”