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“... a figure as his literary namesake. When James was succeeded by Bernard Ingham, who had worked for Barbara Castle, presentation certainly hotted up. Ingham gave a robust account of his new mistress’s views, stamped on the latest rumours with his trademark dismissal, ‘bunkum and balderdash’, and did not hesitate to pass on news that this or that minister ...”

“... as having exhibited ‘the highest degree of moral courage’, while Callaghan, even as he sacks Barbara Castle, speaks of her ‘courage and great intelligence’. Harris finds this sort of bogus generosity deeply noble, as if some of us actually take it for real. ‘Where such generosity was, in all conscience, impossible,’ adds Squire Harris, ‘there ...”

“... with its complex rituals of amour propre. One consequence is that Ruth Fainlight’s poems, like Barbara Pym’s novels, are not a bit afraid of feeling, or of not handling it the right way. Poems in the present collection like ‘The Circle’ – an old friend turns back to fairy stories and goes mad – and ‘Judgment at Marble Arch’ succeed as ...”

“... Such were Mr Ransome’s thoughts as he sat across from his wife, who was having another stab at Barbara Pym. She knew he wasn’t listening to Mozart though there were few obvious signs and nothing so vulgar as a bulge in his trousers. No, there was just a look of strain on Mr Ransome’s face, which was the very opposite of the look he had when he was ...”