“... from the ‘heart of government’. Not all the stratagems work. The attempt to retain Mr Cecil Parkinson in the Cabinet following the disclosure of his affair with his former secretary, Miss Sara Keays, was an epic failure. Newspaper enterprise swiftly scuppered the official line (‘the issue of Mr Parkinson’s ...”

“... scandals, but the privatisation of the railways was by far the worst. It was announced by Cecil Parkinson at a Tory Party Conference where there was little else left to cheer the Tory faithful. During the entire period that the enabling legislation dragged its way through Parliament, never more than 15 per cent of the population indicated their support for ...”

“... Qui trop embrasse, mal étreint. His tribute to the organisational genius of Lord Woolton and Sir Michael Fraser is diminished by the extravagant encomia for Anthony Barber and Cecil Parkinson. We cannot yet write the history of post-Thatcherite Britain, but perhaps it is not too soon to start summarising the ...”

“... welcomed in the press and it quickly became evident from her ministers, Messrs Ridley and Parkinson, that nuclear power was welcomed as a non-polluting source of energy. Public misgivings were disdainfully set aside as ignorant Luddite obstructionism. At the same time, the machinery of development control under the post-war town and country planning ...”

“... innovations made by Dutch horticulturalists, though he also draws from English authors, like John Parkinson, John Rea and Sir Thomas Hanmer. He describes ‘coronary gardens’ (to produce garlands and wreaths) and ‘philosophico-medical gardens’ (yielding simples and adorned with effigies ‘of the most skillfull & illustrious Botanists, Physitians and ...”

“... that a proper inquiry was being conducted and in September 1989 Channon’s successor, Cecil Parkinson, met the newly formed UK Families Flight 103. He promised them a full judicial inquiry. Thatcher countermanded this promise, and he returned to the relatives with an admission of total failure. ‘Low-key’ meant no judicial inquiry, no ...”

“... reads like the cast-list of some bizarre Antipodean soap: Allan Stewart, wielder of the pick-axe; Michael Mates, sender of the famous watch; Norman Lamont, evictor (with some help from the tax-payer) of the tenant with too colourful a professional life; Patrick Nicholls, suspected drunk driver; Nicholas Ridley, too loquacious an advocate of anti-German ...”

“... Editor, he was involved in the bidding for the story of Sarah Keays, former secretary of Cecil Parkinson. ‘One of the attractions of her story to the Mirror and its publisher was the fact that it would be available for publication at the same time as the 1985 Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool.’ Forward with Britain! Such are the duties of a ...”

“... for personal safety, as the medal citations say, also brings up the Sunday Times front page on the Parkinson affair, where the editor allowed one of the most powerful men in the land to smear the character of his ex-mistress behind the dishonest cover of ‘Parkinson’s friends’. Porter concludes that ‘while the quality ...”

“... By the early 1970s, everyone was familiar with it: it was the face of a celebrity, a guest on the Parkinson talk show, wreathed in fag smoke and opining splendidly. And it remains pretty well known: the quirkiest testimony to its renown comes in The Habit of Art, Alan Bennett’s play about Auden and Benjamin Britten, when two of the wrinkles come alive and ...”

“... David Steel, Jeremy Irons, Clement Freud, Norman Tebbit, Barbara Castle, Elaine Paige, Cecil Parkinson, Nigel Lawson, Robin Day. It’s like being compulsorily inducted into a dinner party from hell, a nightmare mix of half-forgotten careerists and political dinosaurs who can’t switch off. But there’s a great view of the Dome, beyond the bend in the ...”