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“... important friends were wealthy men with a taste for the arts – his neighbour Uvedale Price, Sir William Hamilton, Britain’s ambassador at Naples, and the collector Charles Townley. By the mid-l780s Knight moved in the liberal, not to say liberated Whig circles that had Charles James Fox as a hero, and ancient Athens as an inspiration. Knight’s first ...”

“... and that was only ‘the tip of the iceberg’, according to the report’s author, Peter Clarke. Last summer, when he was still secretary of state for education, Michael Gove floated the idea of requiring schools to teach British values. In November, the DfE issued what it called ‘strengthened guidance’ on ‘promoting British values in ...”

“... place in any reputable account of the origins of the ‘Puritan Revolution’; and high time too. William Hunt, whose book is ostensibly about pre-Civil War Essex but really about many things besides, calls it The Puritan Moment. The argument nowadays is not about the political importance of religious conflicts but about their nature. If there is an orthodoxy ...”

“... to his hands on the keyboard and the all-important screen which displays ‘Shakespeare, William: Hamlet’ and promises 141 Entries – a VDU cornucopia. Peter James is tieless and youthful. In the background, other screens glow dimly. The second plate portrays ‘Library Chief Executive Brian Lang in the entrance hall of the new building at St ...”

“... it up, just go out there and kill Soviets.’ These orders came from a most peculiar American. William Casey, the CIA’s director from January 1981 to January 1987, was a Catholic Knight of Malta educated by Jesuits. Statues of the Virgin Mary filled his mansion, called ‘Maryknoll’, on Long Island. He attended mass daily and urged Christianity on ...”

“... which the deep past becomes more significant than the last 24 hours. References to ‘Father’ (William Wedgwood Benn) and to his elder brother Michael (killed in the Second World War) crop up frequently, and merge with moral reminders from Labour Party history. Benn’s father led the Liberal defection from Lloyd George in 1924, and stood up in Ramsay ...”

“... of Vodka is a threnody for the passing of Soviet socialism as seen through the prism of what William Pokhlebkin perceives to be the world’s greatest drink. No question: the cold simplicity of vodka is an invitation to toss the 100 grams down the back of the throat and then to wait, with eyes watering, for the lovely atomic spread in the gut as the ...”

“... after the defeat in October 1974. Had he done so, he would almost certainly have been succeeded by William Whitelaw and not You Know Who. A combination of Mrs Thatcher, seemingly untrammelled trade-unionism and the débâcle of the 1974-79 Labour Government more or less finished off One-Nation Toryism – though its death was lingering rather than sudden. The ...”

“... in Britain. In his chapter on ‘Liberals and Social Democrats in Historical Perspective’ Peter Clarke reminds us of the close relationship of these two strands in the British Left. Socialism and Liberalism may be quite distinct, but during the late 19th and 20th century much of what is often called Socialism in Britain might as accurately have been known ...”

“... be simply that he has had more time to accumulate form. The three men whom he followed – Kenneth Clarke, Kenneth Baker and David Waddington – together occupied the post for just a few months more than he has already served. Baker’s brief romp managed to produce two absurdities, the first comic in the form of the Dangerous Dogs Act, the second tragic, in ...”

“... for his religious beliefs in the reign of Charles I would have been his favoured archbishop, William Laud? What justice did the John Hothams, father and son, get for defying their king when he attempted to claim his magazine of arms and munitions at Hull? They were subsequently executed by order of Parliament. How could the oracles of the common law ...”

“... marked down as someone suited for middle-ranking jobs that required tenacity rather than flair. William Hague promoted her to shadow secretary of state for education, a high-profile position for a newcomer but also traditionally a department that the Tories felt suited a female touch. The fact that Thatcher had been there before her didn’t mean the Tory ...”

“... and it has never been out of official custody. It is the report of a royal commission ordered by William the Conqueror to conduct a stocktaking survey of the great Anglo-Norman feudal estates of his realm of England as they stood 20 years after the Conquest: a report based on the corroborative evidence of six villagers, the priest and the steward from each ...”

“... right-wing policies. It is remarkable in these circumstances that anyone wants to succeed William Hague as leader. What should he or she do? The most obvious strategy is just to hang on. The Conservatives are the official opposition and one of the two major parties of the state. The presumption must be that sooner or later Labour will falter and the ...”

“... as Henry Kingsley had called Australia, turned into an exploitative hell. This was the time that William Lane formed the New Australia movement which settled some four hundred men, women and children in Paraguay in an attempt to establish a socialist commune. It was into this depression that A.B. Facey was born in Victoria in 1894. Facey’s father set off ...”