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“... could hardly withhold information from the Home Secretary? Nor is there any reason to suppose that Leon Brittan would behave any better than Michael Heseltine. Judith Cook’s powerfully argued book Who killed Hilda Murrell? makes it clear yet again that the police notion that it was an ‘ordinary burglary’ is simply not ...”

“... should serve, but recommended that they be kept in prison for ‘a very long time’. In 1985, Leon Brittan, then Home Secretary, decided, in the course of an administrative review, that a 30-year sentence was appropriate for Hindley’s part in the murders. She wasn’t told this. In 1987, she confessed to her involvement in the killing of two more ...”

“... home secretary the ambitious Tories at Toby’s party were so eager to ingratiate themselves with: Leon Brittan was shuffled to the DTI in 1985, and resigned from the government the following year over the Westland affair.) Nick is having a secret affair with Wani: it’s secret inasmuch as the people they know don’t know, including Wani’s ...”

“... The Marconi Scandal, the resignation of Hore Belisha from the War Office, and the attacks on Leon Brittan at the time of the Westland affair, to say nothing of the Fascist and National Front disturbances in the East End, suggest that there was and is more political anti-semitism in Britain than most of us would like to think. The Jew as scapegoat is ...”

“... target. Selbourne, in one of his interviews, reminded Goodman of Denning’s description of Leon Brittan as a ‘German Jew’ interfering with ‘English law’. ‘Lord Denning,’ G. replied, ‘is an unfortunate example of a man who built up a reputation on sand.’ ‘That could be actionable,’ said I. ‘I do not care if it ...”

“... that a Frenchman should hold the competition policy portfolio in the new Prodi Commission. (And Leon Brittan needed no instructions from London to act as a champion of the free market.) Nationalist tendencies among Commissioners are encouraged by their political advisers (cabinet), most of whom tend to come from the home country and may even have ...”

“... the continuity between the policies of the grotesque Home Secretaries of the Thatcher years – Brittan, Waddington, Howard et al – and those of the nominally left-wing incumbent. As a crime, murder is rarely examined with dispassion, and it will come as no surprise to discover that it involves complexities, ignored by the Home Secretary and the tabloid ...”

“... or Mrs Thatcher’s jingoistic talk about Victorian values. (These values can be shared by, say, Leon Brittan, even though his ancestors were hardly of ‘pure’ English stock.) The difference is precisely one of unquestioned and institutionalised racism: if Nakasone believes what he preaches, and there is no reason to assume that he does not, he is in ...”

“... only in Mrs Thatcher’s Cabinet – including, at its peak, Joseph, Lawson, Young, Rifkind and Brittan – but among those on whom Mrs Thatcher leant for private advice: Joseph, Lawson, Alfred Sherman and the Saatchi brothers. Able young Jewish MPs (and there are now quite a few on the Tory benches) were natural recruits to the Thatcherite cause, not only ...”

“... interview, with the suggestion that the Guildford Four might be guilty and the description of Leon Brittan as ‘a German Jew telling us what to do with our English law’. In 1955 Lord Chancellor Kilmuir said that judges should be kept insulated from the controversies of the day: ‘So long as the judge keeps silent, his reputation for wisdom and ...”

“... and order. Reunification in any case would be unlikely to take the form recently suggested by Sir Leon Brittan – that is, a simple extension of West German institutions to the East. Given their apparent commitment to some form of socialism, the citizens of the GDR would probably want to retain a substantial degree of autonomy. Even if the first stages ...”

“... the Foreign Secretary (Howe), the Home Secretary (Whitelaw), the Trade and Industry Secretary (Leon Brittan), the Party Chairman (Tebbit), the Chief Whip (Wakeham) and the Leader of the House of Commons (Biffen). All except Biffen supported Lawson, but Thatcher refused to give way. Stephens says this was the only occasion in her prime ministership ...”

“... much to his up-struggling co-members. One by one, we find them written off: ‘Loathsome, oily Leon Brittan’, ‘the odious Heseltine’, ‘that prick John Patten . . . so ambitious that he squeaks when he walks’, ‘that lazy, greasy slob John Hunt’, ‘that toad John Major . . . who has always loathed me’ and so on. Only the blessed ...”

“... of Borstal training. The flexible and rehabilitative approach came under pressure after the speech Leon Brittan made to the Conservative Party Conference in 1983, when he was Home Secretary. In Brittan’s view too many prisoners were getting out too early; and as a result of his reforms, administrative procedures were ...”

“... felt it touched on his personal authority as defence secretary. His main rival in this matter was Leon Brittan, newly arrived as secretary of state at the Department of Trade and Industry after his demotion from the Home Office. Brittan was feeling bruised; Heseltine was restless and looking for new worlds to ...”