“... reputation, and Ziegler makes scarcely any such claims. It was to Thatcher, not Heath, that Tony Blair hastened to pay court. And although the Con-Lib coalition has made much of its determination to protect the poorest against the cuts better than they were protected in the 1980s, it is common ground that the reduction of the deficit must be given ...”

“... her any better); her speeches were greeted with jeers and she was called a ‘stupid cow’ by Tony Marlow, one of John Major’s Maastricht rebels (there’s a video of this on YouTube: Marlow looks very pleased with himself, especially when he manages to repeat the remark after the Speaker, Betty Boothroyd, asks him whether he’d used ‘unparliamentary ...”

“... two Westerners were shot, one fatally, within 24 hours of the strikes). On the BBC, I watched Tony Blair enthusiastically endorsing the attacks. Even then they looked petulant; now it is clear they were self-defeating. All they did was turn Bin Laden into a household name throughout the region, if not the world, and recruit thousands to his cause ...”

“... Now, 30 years on, Lance Price, himself a former BBC reporter who then worked as a media adviser to Tony Blair, has brought the story up to the present (his title and subtitle are on much the same lines as Margach’s). At first blush, it is hard to see that much has changed. Price is particularly good at showing how half the prime ministers of the last ...”

“... George Robertson and others – the highest ever proportion of Scots in a Labour cabinet. Even Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh. In his quest to scrap Labour’s Clause IV commitment to common ownership, Blair was encouraged by a victory at Scottish Labour’s 1995 conference, recalling in his memoirs that if they ...”

“... heads.’ The Mancunian music scene will never become completely domesticated, however many times Tony Blair invites Noel Gallagher to Downing Street. But it could be hollowed out by London. Haslam DJs down there now. Gallagher drinks in Islington pubs. Morrissey of the Smiths, once a wanderer in crumbling Manchester cemeteries, bought a creamy villa ...”

“... day the British press in one way or another trumpets the marvels of imminently online Britain. Tony Blair has decreed that, by the turn of the century, all Britain’s schoolchildren will be linked in a ‘national grid of learning’. It’s not evident that he or David Blunkett knows precisely what they mean by this feeble echo of Al Gore’s ...”

“... bigotry and extremism’ that he ‘has no business at Number Ten’ and that Tony Blair should remember to have a sick bag at the ready. He has been written off a thousand times, told that if Sinn Féin doesn’t repudiate the IRA he’ll be finished, warned that his supporters are fed up and about to desert him. Sharrock and ...”

“... European affairs – following events in Britain, for example, closely enough to be an adviser to Tony Blair, though not quite closely enough to have had second thoughts about the wisdom of letting this fact be trumpeted in the publicity material for his book. He writes fast-moving, even breathless prose: chapter headings like ‘The Age of the Terrific ...”

“... leaders dominated and defined the political culture of the mid-1970s. It’s hard to conceive of Tony Blair launching his career by defending the Angry Brigade. Despite having planted bombs at the homes of leading Conservative ministers (and the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police), the Angries have received little mainstream historical ...”

“... Labour Government was no more inclined than the Tories to offend the newspaper bosses. After all Tony Blair had gone halfway round the world before the 1997 election to reach a concordat with Rupert Murdoch. The only effective way to regulate the press would be to adopt all the recommendations of Calcutt’s second report, enshrine them in law and ...”

“... ambitious. In a moment which anticipated the notorious Granita conversation of 1994 between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, he told Stafford Cripps that ‘any time you wish it I shall always be ready to retire in your favour.’ As Bew remarks, ‘That conversation hung in the air for a number of years.’ For, when the ailing and assailed Lansbury ...”

“... including Banner, 2007 was a missed opportunity: activities centred on celebrating Wilberforce and Tony Blair refused to offer a state apology. His government did, however, make a statement expressing ‘deep sorrow’ over the slave trade and recognised it as a crime against humanity. The Heritage Lottery Fund gave grants to 285 projects marking the ...”

“... the way healthcare in Britain should be funded that personal hypocrisy is not much of an issue. Tony Blair may not be able to bring himself to educate his children in the comprehensive system that has to suffice for most parents, but when it comes to health he is happy to take his chances with the NHS (knowing, of course, that he will be well looked ...”

“... though it was their regimes that broke the link between the state and welfare. George W. Bush and Tony Blair are ‘among the first market-state political leaders’, even though one of them still talks as though the state can make provision for a kind of social security through its public services. That is all froth. Deep down they speak the same ...”