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“... affairs; it was a massive misjudgment in his own area of expertise that brought him down. Although Richard Lamb says that ‘Eden’s premiership foundered solely because of the Suez affair’ (which begs the question, much discussed at the time in the press, of whether it would not otherwise have soon foundered on something else), his book deals with the ...”

“... being somewhat fledged, I may perhaps return to metaphysic study & scepticism without danger to my powers of action. For the present, then, remember: Care little for speculation, much for the form of my action. This passage is invariably used to demonstrate that James’s ‘will to believe’ required a prior leap of faith in the will itself, and that this ...”

“... to read and hear almost every message that passes between us. In his new history of GCHQ Richard Aldrich claims that this surveillance capability constitutes potentially ‘the most insidious threat to personal liberty’ we face today. Bentham’s panopticon was a fiction. The Victorians who came after him would never have permitted anything like ...”

“... as anti-Semitic. Policy is not law. At most it is a guide to the application of legal powers where these include exercises of discretion or judgment. For central government the impact of the IHRA policy may well be imperceptible, but for local authorities and educational institutions, and for the police in a number of situations, the policy is ...”

“... British freedoms known as the First World War, involving as it did ‘arbitrary (governmental) powers that would have made the Stuarts blush’. State repression stretched beyond this into the class struggles of the interwar period, as the ancient law of sedition was brought back from the grave to censor and imprison Communists. The far right was allowed ...”

“... the promise of an immediately brighter future. Its mandate was grandiose, dictated by the Great Powers who had been behind the Cambodian war and had then negotiated its conclusion in the Paris Peace Agreement of 1991, which led to the creation of Untac. Untac’s aims were to return and resettle the 350,000 refugees across the border in Thailand; to disarm ...”

“... the suave portraitist Lawrence and the startling fantasist Fuseli were at the height of their powers, and that embarrassing outsider William Blake was issuing book after book of illuminated prophecy. Farington himself was not a major participant in this rich flowering: his meticulous, straight-laced art belongs more to an earlier age. But he was a great ...”

“... served in a number of ministerial roles before losing his seat in 2019; and the attorney general, Richard Hermer KC, a barrister appointed from full-time practice at Matrix Chambers.The published list of ministerial appointments included an asterisk against the outsiders’ names with a footnote recording that the king intended to confer on each a peerage for ...”

“... had more than a sentence on its policy – the man who’s responsible for many of these ideas, Richard Layard, is suitably sceptical. But it may not be so silly as it was even recently to suppose that some sort of incomes policy might work. Engineers and electricians, even miners, are calling each other ‘colleague’ now. (It’s only ‘brother’ and ...”

“... Shia leaders may calculate that the US or Iran will always intervene to save Baghdad, but both powers are showing reluctance to plunge into the Iraqi quagmire in support of a dysfunctional government. Iraq’s Shia leaders haven’t grappled with the fact that their domination over the Iraqi state, brought about by the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein, is ...”

“... Syria’s friends and enemies off against one another. Today, nearly all the regional and Western powers want him to remain in office, an unusual congruence of interests. Syria could count on the support of its regional allies, Hizbullah, Iran and Turkey (though Turkey did have some criticisms), but while the United States and the EU have called for an end to ...”

“... What is history for? What do we want it to do? In 1731, an obscure Kentish schoolmaster named Richard Spencer offered some answers. Properly to ascertain his position in geographical space, he reasoned, required not a single map, but access to a global atlas, one that would allow him to ‘see what London and the adjacent parts are in the kingdom; what the kingdom is in Europe, and what Europe is in the universe ...”

“... hardness in the attack … No flight, no weariness, always on the attack. Not to have full powers, but to be the power.’ Even then he is always conscious that if all this tedious admin is going to be worth it, it has to lead to something beyond the outward forms provided by the party and the university: Nazism is ‘a genuine nascent power only if it ...”

“... that since (say) Malevich didn’t have the same agenda as Allais, the latter’s anticipatory powers are altogether less remarkable. The title is the shortest form of art writing you get. Its analyst has produced the longest. Invisible Colours is tireless, obsessive, crammed to bursting with letters, anecdotes, catalogue lists, quirky ...”

“... to foresee all that will occur in the intervening years and creating an impression of prophetic powers. The decision also has the effect of suggesting that the moment when, in the middle of life’s path, the poet loses his way is not unrelated to his loss of his home, of Florence. So hell presents itself first and foremost as a place of exile. To an ...”