“... functions like a morbid conspiracy. Like him, she has written again and again about lower-middle-class gentility (rural Canadian rather than urban English), and its self-obsessed obedience. Like his stories, Munro’s are fat with community: her characters steal their lean solitude from the thickness that surrounds them. These thieves struggle against the ...”

“... are all too susceptible; good counsel to which they are deaf. The story indicts equally a ruling class and a nation which have failed their own tests of public virtue. Arcadia, like Elizabethan England, is in a perilous condition. The death or threatened death of the irresponsible ruler will lead to a violently disputed succession and civil ...”

“... called Eric ‘might not unfairly be described as starting life with a handicap’. The Great War showed what handicapped Erics were made of; in 1918 my cousin Eric, up from Biggin Hill in a two-seater fighter, overhauled – little by little – a homing Gotha bomber and contributed to its destruction. It is unlikely that more recent Erics ...”

“... another, yet the ‘journey’ aspect is given hardly any significance; instinct tells us not to class it as a ‘travel book’. By contrast, in the case of Goethe’s Italian Journey, it is the journey itself, which is by no means altogether planned and develops rather like a work of art, that counts most. One could even, metaphorically, call it an ...”

“... insects to be studied under glass’. He did not address ‘social injustice, violence or war under capitalism’. Goffman’s actors were men and women in grey flannel suits who did not resist, ‘they conformed to the requirements of a local and global capitalism that erased class, race and gender in the name of a ...”

“... world. On balance, this aspect of the story struck me as not very plausible, what with the Cold War having ended some time back. The Russian spy is, however, of some interest in his own right. Like the chap in Gilbert and Sullivan, he’s an inadvertent source of merriment. Lloyd’s dialogue rarely strikes the ear as convincing. (‘Your theory of ...”

“... rebellion – or rather ensemble of rebellions – took the form of ‘petite guerre’, a phoney war of localised raids and skirmishes, rather than major confrontations. The outcome was decided in two near simultaneous battles in mid-November 1715, at Sherrifmuir near Stirling and at Preston. If the former was inconclusive, though marked by massive Jacobite ...”

“... a political consensus on taxation and welfare reform, British parties have lost their policy (and class) distinctiveness and become more like the electoral machines of their leaders, as is largely the case in America. Tony Blair’s celebrated ‘project’, guided by Philip Gould, dismantled the rambling institutions that formed the Labour coalition and ...”

“... Harm, an advocacy group launched in 2016, which supports families and aims to end ‘the failed war on drugs’. She says that not everyone using drugs fits the stereotypes. ‘These kids played softball and soccer and joined the boy scouts.’ Her son started using drugs as a teenager, first OxyContin – the prescription opioid made by Purdue Pharma which ...”

“... brilliant essays on television and tennis. When French TV started revisiting the Second World War, Daney suggested that Pétain had become a name for what was still being hidden or denied – a saint, a puppet, ‘only a signifier’. In an endless match against Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe was the bearer of a fable: ‘The winner won’t be the one who ...”

“... flags featuring the watchword ‘Jai Shri Ram’ (hail Ram), which doubles as a greeting and a war cry for the Hindu right, appeared across New Delhi. Models of the temple went on display at shopping malls; ornate banners of Modi and Ram hung from footbridges. It was hard to believe that such a transformation had been wrought by the inauguration of a ...”

“... wrote nearly all the group’s best tunes, only to be pushed out for being a Beatles-loving middle-class namby.) Andrew Loog Oldham, who managed the Rolling Stones, was the crucial precursor in grasping that bad publicity was useful – something to be actively sought, even fabricated. But he hadn’t featured so prominently in the coverage of his clients as ...”

“... an indication of how the party’s changing, Wilfred got selected for Chippenham – white, middle-class, you know, deepest Wiltshire. And Wilfred tooled up to the selection meeting, wearing his jeans and an open-necked shirt, and just took them by storm. And they love him.’ ‘Do you want to meet Wilfred?’ the press officer said. ‘Yeah, you should ...”

“... or places of higher education. And here is Bruce’s open scholarship to Exeter in 1922, his first-class degree three years later; his Senior Demyship at Magdalen in 1925 and the Bryce Studentship; then, in 1926, a fellowship at Magdalen. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t figure in any of the team photographs that line the corridors.A woman is restoring some of the ...”

“... prominence, not only because it provided a simple picture of the dangers of a post-Cold War world, but because he wrote of ethnic hatred and religious intolerance without the usual liberal discomfort, indeed without appearing to make value-judgments of any sort. This new book is an elaboration of that article and a response to its critics. Dazzling ...”