“... the objectives of the treaties all member states have signed and the latter provides that the EU may act only if an individual member state cannot otherwise achieve what it wants in areas outside the EU’s exclusive competence. The UK has a record of ‘gold plating’ EU legislation, by far exceeding its requirements, in areas as diverse as animal ...”

“... and France – to organise a swift transition and abstain from seeking power himself. But in May 2021 he carried out a coup within the coup, removing the transitional government and taking charge of the administration, flanked by the populist politician Choguel Maïga. Between them they formulated the plan for Mali’s long ‘transition’, which ...”

“... based on accumulated data that give probabilistic predictions of the correct molecular structure, may exist now, but they didn’t in 1951. The fundamental problem is that, unlike rays of light, X-rays cannot be focused to produce an image, or reflected to produce a mirror image. Yet use them we must, if we want to get down to the architecture of these ...”

“... will not stay the same, given the higher birth-rate of Palestinians compared to Jews. Thus Olmert may well come to the conclusion that pull-outs are not the solution. Once the ‘Arabs’ in Israel and the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories came to be thought of in the West as ‘Muslims’ it was easy to elicit support for Israel’s demographic ...”

“... from Richard Shilleto, a Cambridge don, a riposte entitled simply Thucydides or Grote? That may be a more complex question than Shilleto realised. Thucydides argued that the Athenian Empire was hated by its subject peoples; admirers of Athenian democracy are naturally eager to confute that judgment. Moreover, though Thucydides has a fair claim to be ...”

“... lies wincing upstairs and Kate grits her teeth against the pain of breast-feeding. The war zone may be only a suburban American house, but the family is stuck ‘in the trenches’, focused on surviving each new crisis yet ‘always losing ground’. Kate – the former globetrotter – grapples with nipple guards as her partner retreats to the status of ...”

“... a hearty, back-slapping, unquenchably loquacious Army type, though there is just a hint that he may be homosexual. As a boy, the narrator hero-worships him, and when they meet again years later Medlicott insists on treating him as an old friend, dining him at expensive restaurants or taking him on exhausting pub crawls. The narrator cannot make up his mind ...”

“... another account – of the Darwin-Wallace story. But Wallace is not now the forgotten figure he may once have been. He was a much more immediate writer than Darwin and his seminal contributions to animal distribution studies are acknowledged by most academics. More important, after his barnacle studies, Darwin was no longer really a ‘species man’. He ...”

“... for his control of tone and genre. Open his trilogy, His Dark Materials, almost anywhere and you may find bears boasting their readiness for ritual combat in language vaguely reminiscent of Beowulf, and onlookers who enjoy the company and protection of friendly daemons, all of it plausible and smooth. But this new book has nothing to do with that sort of ...”

“... to turn peasants against landowners, the nobility and state officials in the name of socialism. He may also have belonged to an even more secretive group called Hell, which wanted to kill the tsar in order to provoke a general uprising that would lead, it was hoped, to the establishment of a socialist government. Karakozov was tried and executed in September ...”

“... earlier used to devour a takeaway M&S red onion and feta salad – this is pure speculation, she may’ve just used a stray screwdriver or a handy Swiss army knife, or the salad may actually have been tuna-based) – then returns to the ailing postbox and … The tuna-based salad, which renders the speaker insane, is pure ...”

“... Today if ‘thingness’ matters, it is that of the screen. The picture snapped with a mobile may be charged with immediacy, but it lacks the power to reflect on the world it so eagerly, even promiscuously records. Or is it that the world ‘out there’ has somehow become invisible, little more than a background to the self? Salt and Silver catalyses ...”

“... and the book’s ending gives further evidence of this courage, in contrast with what there may be in her of the supine, accident-prone and excitable, a contrast which may supply the clearest instance of her duality. As a cradle Catholic still affected by the traditions of her community, she has seen the point of ...”

“... a fog of grappa and obsession, Lynch sets about befriending ugly Anna, while suspecting that she may be in cahoots with her mother, the blonde contessa, and possibly also with the rival art historian. In a leather trunk covered with dust, concealed in a hidden room in Mawle House (don’t groan: the art-hunt novel is a sub-species of Gothic, in which the ...”

“... on the inventory of that institution – is covered, and the state hoping to recover its property may have to pay compensation. These strict requirements contrast strongly with the sweeping rhetoric of the rest of the convention. As Patrick O’Keefe has shown, this formulation was insisted on by the US delegation, which refused to sign unless it was drafted ...”