“... The Congress of People’s Deputies, the new parliament of the Soviet Union, was in session and we were hearing its elected members voting freely, unpredictably, without fear. The voice – strong, lively – belonged to the man in the chair, Mikhail Gorbachev. I remember leaning back against the window, my heart suddenly too big for my chest. So it was ...”

“... the ‘mad dog of the Middle East’, a description which was, interestingly enough, first used by George Bush. Saddam (Arab victory over foreigners, vanguard of the Arab people, etc) was, in the Ayatollah’s eyes, the aggressive and satanic invader of Iran. Khomeini (Imam, pan-Islamic revolutionary, reviver of Muslim purity, etc) was, according to the ...”

“... in private. The Islamic State’s spin doctors countered that the watch was actually an Al Fajr wa-10s Deluxe, the preferred choice of true Muslims: it has a built-in compass that indicates the direction of Mecca and can be programmed to alert wearers to the correct time for prayer in hundreds of cities around the world. The sceptics responded with mock ...”

“... and the laws of war. Most disturbing, however, are some of the threats uttered by President Bush. The assertion that ‘you’re either with us or against us’ obviates a central aspect of state sovereignty – the right not to be involved – and recasts the US as the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong. The identification of an ‘axis of ...”

“... projects. King of the City is a very different beast. ‘Believe me, pards,’ it opens, ‘we’re living in an age of myths and miracles.’ (Moorcock, a wily veteran, knows perfectly well, after all those years of TV evangelists and Teflon politicos, how to manage the spin that sends a sentence into reverse, like a backward-travelling ...”

“... And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like … Did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?’ Trump was so mortified he practically ran to the exit after the plates were cleared. As Joshua Green reports in his new book on Trump’s relationship with Steve ...”

“... last year’s newspapers have been driven off the front page by more urgent matters: President Bush’s troubles with Pat Buchanan, General Motors’ record-breaking losses of $4.5 billion, and the usual va et vient of an election year, Dinesh D’Souza’s Illiberal Education has lost its lustre as his horror stories have been found not to stand up to ...”

“... proportion of white male Republican voters typically reaches landslide proportions, as it did for George W. Bush. Before Johnson the only Southern Democrat to have been elected President since the Civil War was Woodrow Wilson, who had built his political career in New Jersey; since Johnson, no non-Southern Democrat has gone ...”

“... I were both World Service lifers, but never in the same part of it. From different vantage points we both witnessed significant changes. Some things, such as audio quality, improved, but editorial standards declined as the channel was transformed from one of the most respected radio stations on earth into a multimedia production house churning out material of ...”

“... me, Israeli strikes had destroyed 130 houses – people didn’t want to go through that again. ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen,’ he said. ‘No one came and told us what to do. We don’t know if we should stay or leave, parents don’t know what to do with the ...”

“... for ‘military humanism’ that receives its ultimate articulation in Ooga-Booga’s ‘The Bush Administration’: The Bush administration likes its rain sunny-side up. I feel a mania of happiness at being alive As I write you this suicide note. I have never been so cheerily suicidal, so sui-Seidel. I am too cheery ...”

“... and doom-mongers at home were also routed, and Disraeli was able to tell the Commons that ‘we have asserted the purity of our purpose.’ ‘In an age accused, and perhaps not unjustly, of selfishness, and too great a regard for material interests,’ he continued, ‘it is something, in so striking and significant a manner, for a great nation to have ...”

“... triumphed, with plenty to spare. At 10.30 he took a call from Karl Rove, former election guru to George W. Bush, congratulating him on his win. This sealed his mind against all remaining doubt. As Wolff writes: ‘Why would Rove – a man as in with the Beltway Republican establishment as anybody, who didn’t like Trump ...”

“... state for the Egyptians, a Jewish state for the Jews, simply flies in the face of reality. What we require is a rethinking of the present in terms of coexistence and porous borders. Edward Said, 1999 For some years, most people sympathetic to Palestinian national aspirations – or simply alert to their durability and the political dangers they pose ...”

“... That night, attention was locked on the revolution that seemed to be underway in Egypt, which we followed spottily on our primitive Twitter feeds. Activists linked hands in a human chain across the portico of the British Museum, inspired by images of people lining up around the Egyptian Museum on the north side of Tahrir Square, to protect it from ...”