Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite

In​ 1981, in the wake of a budget that slashed government spending amid a steep economic downturn, 364 academic economists signed a letter to the Times. ‘The time has come,’ it said, ‘to reject monetarist policies,’ since ‘there is no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence for the government’s belief that by deflating demand they will bring...

By​ 2014, Keir Starmer was tired of running up against the ‘limits of legal justice’. He had recently stepped down as director of public prosecutions when his local MP, Frank Dobson, announced his retirement. Starmer entered the race to replace him as the member for Holborn and St Pancras. He was a political unknown in a crowded field, facing past and present leaders of Camden...

Raphael Samuel​ adopted his notetaking method from Beatrice and Sidney Webb, progenitors of Fabian socialism, who developed it in the late 19th century:

Each thought or reference to a source was written or pasted onto a single side of a loose sheet of paper. It might be the source itself – an advertisement, a jam-jar label or an extract from a Xerox – it mattered only that it was...

Alex Comfort​ was exhausting. After meeting him, the pioneering sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson swapped notes. ‘If we could learn to produce on a 24-hour level the way he does, I think we’d probably have it made,’ Johnson said. ‘Five or six hours is all I can stand,’ Masters replied. ‘I end up out of breath while he’s...

Gary Webster​ was seventeen when he was told he had Aids and might have just two or three years to live. It was early 1983 and he was at Treloar’s, a boarding school for children with haemophilia and other disabling conditions. He had to give the news to his parents himself. In his written statement to the Infected Blood Inquiry he said the ‘worst thing’ was the stigma. He...