“... is bilge’ (the German quark, which has since made its way into English, literally means ‘soft white cheese’). But whatever the conditions in which she found herself – in Warsaw, she was one of 14 political prisoners crammed into a single cell – she never lost her fervour: her joy, as she put it, amid the horrors of the world. ‘My inner ...”

“... soldiers: Nigel Coupe of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, and Jake Hartley, Anthony Frampton, Christopher Kershaw, Daniel Wade and Daniel Wilford of the Yorkshire Regiment. All except Coupe, a sergeant and father of two children, were aged between 19 and 21. They died in Afghanistan in March 2012, out on patrol in Helmand province, when their Warrior ...”

“... local government. And it felt right, for blacks, Asians, women, gays and any number of straight white men.But not for everybody. There were those who saw the point of diversity, and even equal rights, but who objected to equality-in-diversity, a fatal combination in their view, with its suggestion that the case for homegrown, European values must now be ...”

“... in Mile End because the markets were better over there, but at least Westfield was near her now in White City. She was 31. ‘I was born in Egypt 11,426 days ago,’ she told one of her neighbours, pleased with the new app on her iPhone that could count days. Rania was a great fan of Snapchat, she posted there every spare minute she had, and on Instagram and ...”

“... policy of those who won the referendum, the Tories, defiant of the EU and subservient to the White House, had become ‘résistants towards Brussels, but pétainistes towards Washington’. Johnson, aptly depicted by Mount as ‘a seedy, treacherous character’, was both ruthlessly ambitious and totally unprincipled. For Wheatcroft, as a writer for the ...”

“... Police put out a nationwide alert for a couple on the run with their baby: Constance Marten, a white woman aged 35, and her partner, Mark Gordon, a 48-year-old black man. The story became headline news. Photographs of the couple and appeals for information were broadcast on the BBC, Sky and ITV, and published in all the national papers. As Gordon’s ...”

“... that this was indeed him.The CIA’s involvement was reported by the Reuters correspondent, Christopher Roper, in the story he filed that day, but the crucial paragraph was tactfully removed from the version printed by the New York Time. My own story in the Guardian, which would normally have been reprinted by the Washington Post, was ignored. Not until ...”

“... to her relationship with the subject, a close friend whom for many years she knew and admired – Christopher Sykes on Waugh is the nearest parallel? In such cases, affection can shape the compass of a biography, personal knowledge lighting up but also limiting what can be said. Perhaps there are traces of that here; but, on the whole, in the warmth and grace ...”