“... Saif al-Islam emerged within the regime. It was the fashion some years ago in circles close to the Blair government – in the media, principally, and among academics – to talk up Saif al-Islam’s commitment to reform and it is the fashion now to heap opprobrium on him as his awful father’s son. Neither judgment is accurate, both are self-serving. Saif ...”

“... to a halt in a fraction of a second was subjected to market shocks that had no market solution. Blair’s government had already intervened to slow down the switch from coal to gas; in 2002 it had little choice but to bail out British Energy, the private company that owned the nuclear stations. And there was a deeper, less visible problem. Neta was ...”

“... states such as Ukraine have no choice but to submit to the nearest great power, has run its course.John Mearsheimer’s argument of recent weeks that what we are seeing played out is ‘not imperialism [but] great-power politics’ will strike many as a distinction without a difference. Imperial history has far more to teach us than our decaying Atlantic ...”

“... what might be called spin-doctorates of the equerry. Van Rompuy was never a ruler in the sense Blair and Obama were, and van Middelaar never enjoyed the power of Powell and Rhodes. He is, on the other hand, incomparably more intelligent and literate, so Alarums and Excursions is a superior exercise in the genre, without need for chest-beating typical of ...”

“... and the idea of the fire brigade as a last line of defence. But that began to change during the Blair era and there has been a flurry of reductions in the fire service. ‘Knightsbridge Fire Station has closed,’ Matt Wrack told me. ‘Kensington Fire Station has lost a fire engine. Half the fire cover within four miles of Grenfell Tower has gone in the ...”