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“... was nothing like the one he tarted up for his memoirs. Brussel’s real advice was to search White Plains, New York for an egomaniacal German high-school graduate in his forties with a facial scar; an expert in bomb-making; a man who had ‘a classic textbook case of paranoia’, rather than a genuine beef. Whoops. The evidence which led to the capture ...”

“... The latter danger has been greatly increased by the attacks. The terrorists have raised to white heat certain smouldering tendencies among the American Right, while simultaneously – as is usually the case at the start of wars – pushing American politics and most of its population in a sharply rightward direction; all of which has taken place under ...”

“... would give him a superficial affinity to that line of elected reps, from Winston Churchill to Tony Benn, for whom, at times, eloquence and historical self-consciousness have seemed ends in themselves. Yet there is another less exalted political figure the mayor recalls: Alastair Campbell. A journalist like Johnson, Campbell tried to shorten the old PR ...”

“... judge, Linda Dobbs QC, has just been appointed), the legal profession continues to be dominated by white men, frustrating efforts to diversify the bench. The proposal to change lawyers’ career patterns so as, for example, to allow them to combine part-time judicial sitting with child care, is valuable but nowhere near sufficient. One day government is going ...”

“... from an Iranian flag descended between them. Mahmoud, the leader of the set, wore a black and white checked scarf; his beard was thick but neatly trimmed; he was 18 years old. I knew Mahmoud slightly and was keen to speak to him. ‘Islam is the complete solution to our problems,’ Mahmoud said, explaining that our brothers in Afghanistan and Palestine ...”

“... an all-round amoral charmer and shit, immune to scandal and opinion, and the envy of lesser men. Tony ‘didn’t know which he resented most – Rupert’s habitual contempt, his ability to sleep anywhere, his effortless acquisition of women …’ There’s also the capacity Rupert shares with a goodish number of other characters in these novels to swallow ...”

“... gimmickry. To me, the decisive moment in his appearance outside a church across the road from the White House, not quite knowing which way up to hold a Bible, was the exposure of the gimmick as an object no longer able to perform its designated narrative or symbolic function. ‘Is that your Bible?’ a reporter asked Trump. ‘It’s a Bible.’ Ngai could ...”

“... Adani’s use of offshore shell companies; and his supporters took to the airwaves to allege that white people just couldn’t bear to see India make progress.In the weeks since then, Adani’s spectacular fall has continued: among other reverses, he had to cancel the $2.5 billion share sale, and no longer sits near the top of the list of the world’s ...”

“... father was JFK’s assassin. The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who fancied himself a Tony Soprano boss with a Bruce Springsteen soul, endured fat jokes on stage from Trump, hardly a ballerina himself. The activation of Lindsey Graham’s salivary glands whenever he rises up on his hind legs in defence of Trump and the MAGA agenda is a source of ...”

“... after the election, Aaron Sorkin’s rant on the Vanity Fair website: ‘The Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons … misogynistic shitheads everywhere … If he does manage to be a douche nozzle without breaking the law for four years, we’ll make it through those four years.’ Or consider the message read out to Vice ...”

“... he looked down at the staff in the huge newsroom, clearly visible from the lobby. ‘They’re all white!’ he said. Someone suggested they could bung the Arabic Service down there to make it look more diverse. As the World Service was folded into the rest of the BBC, more managers were appointed to the World Service, to match the top-heavy ratio in other ...”

“... sender could have been used in a novel: it has nothing to do with stage figures like Brenda and Tony Last. It is too difficult not to write to you now, Evelyn, because things have not been going well – because it’s nearly March 13th which was the day you jokingly suggested we might meet – each year till I am 70. And so I suppose that day will be for ...”

“... background as you reach for a shelf of cashmere sweaters, or see your food approaching on a big white plate. In Manchester these days, such pretend utopias are part of the landscape. Moderately prosperous people, and those who would like to be, can spend wet Saturdays as if they were in Milan or Madrid, consuming and coffee-sipping and practising their ...”

“... workers in Scotland were still unemployed or able only to find odd jobs such as the hawking of white clay or the collecting of manure. The theme of the book is the life of those who still stayed in coal but at the surface: who they were, how they worked, lived and, sometimes, were killed, and the renewed efforts to ‘reform’ them out of existence in the ...”

“... Labour Left? Wouldn’t bureaucracy make an altogether more serious demon than poor Aaronovitch or Tony Benn? Oliver seems to take his leave at about this point, pleading innocent of any reference to the real political world and claiming in a prefatory note that his poem speaks only of ‘the phantasmagoria that flit across the world of the media and float ...”