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“... Choderlos de Laclos​ ’s Liaisons dangereuses is remembered for its salacious intrigues, but it’s also about the condition of women. Addressing the Vicomte de Valmont, her partner in games of intimate deception, the Marquise de Merteuil declares that all aspects of social life are more fraught with danger for women: ‘As for you men, your defeats are only a success the less ...”

“... talents were other than those of a Parliamentary chairman; Arthur Henderson was dull; Ramsay MacDonald was both great orator and skilled tactician, though his critics within the Party were numerous well before the First World War broke out. During that war, a number of Labour men served in government (not, of course, ...”

“... a sense a veteran.’ He became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Labour’s new leader, Ramsay MacDonald, and then, in the first Labour Government, Under-Secretary at the War Office. In the later Twenties he was nominated by MacDonald to the Simon Commission on India; because of his ...”

“... it was not only odd, it was singular. Thus he was a minister under Lloyd George (1916-21), MacDonald (1930-31) and Attlee (1945-51): during the First World War and its aftermath, the depth of the Depression, and the Second World War and its aftermath – three of the most demanding ‘epochs’ in modern British history. Again, of the four boldest ...”

“... private-enterprise medical practitioner, counsellor, sexual athlete and compulsive writer Simon Forman. Forman’s voluminous papers, case-notes, diaries and all sorts of other writings had been in the Bodleian Library since Elias Ashmole presented them in the late 17th century. They contained a vast amount of anecdote about all sorts of ...”

“... of Major Ltd by Blair & Co. Nor did I expect to be reproved, however gently, for indiscretion by Simon Jenkins on the op-ed page of the Times – as if I hadn’t cleared what I proposed to print with anyone quoted directly who might have suffered in consequence, or would have dreamed of disclosing to LRB readers without ...”

“... the encouragement of his children, three formidable volumes have appeared, admirably edited by Simon Heffer, with profuse footnotes displaying considerable scholarship and intermittent pedantry.As Heffer says, Channon was seen as ‘trivial, snobbish, shallow and profoundly lacking in judgment’, a toady to the rich and royal, and, according to Nancy ...”

“... something practical, what right have you to it as subject-matter? What can you possibly say? Simon Garfield had qualms when writing The End of Innocence, a factual account which should, on the face of it, be useful: spreading the word, disentangling the truth, demythologising, softening prejudice. It is objective about difficult issues – how, for ...”

“... Simon Heffer​ has had an idea. He has had them before, but he has fattened this one up into a book of enormous proportions. Huge quantities of factual narrative have been injected into it, in the hope of beguiling reviewers into acknowledging its historical respectability. For all that, the underlying argument is simple – the title gives it away ...”

“... like silence,’ it begins) was released in 1965, on Bringing It All Back Home, the same year as Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sound of Silence’, which includes the line: ‘The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.’ I don’t know which was written first, or if they were written quite independently, and it doesn’t matter – after ...”

“... later 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 ...”

“... of the ‘failure of Modern architecture’ has been a lucrative occupation for the likes of Simon Jenkins, but unlike Jenkins, Richards was the Great Insider. As he said in ‘The Hollow Victory’, he was ‘in the middle of the campaign for modern architecture’, and sure enough, among the illustrations to Unjust Fella, there is a group photograph of ...”

“... I bet he did). It contains an account of the meeting between Lochiel and Charles Edward at MacDonald of Boradale’s. Lochiel argued long and hard to dissuade the Chevalier, but when he failed, he said: ‘I’ll share the fate of my prince; and so shall every man over whom nature or fortune have given me power.’ The quotation from The Wealth of ...”

“... to go to Berne to attend a convention of European socialists, whose delegates included Ramsay MacDonald and Arthur Henderson, and which produced nothing. The convention was designed as a continuation of the regular prewar gatherings of the Socialist International, at which various factions had squabbled and bickered before declaring their unshakeable ...”

“... to other scholars. The result was that the unofficial biographies by Chris Bryant (1997) and Simon Burgess (1999) – whose quality Clarke graciously acknowledges – were written without access to Cripps’s personal papers. This was unfortunate. In general, Clarke writes, the exclusion blighted rather than fostered scholarship. ‘Dame Isobel’s ...”