“... at Snails Bay’, can also be set beside the work of Morgan, author of ‘Wittgenstein on Egdon Heath’. Porter spent time as a writer-in-residence in Edinburgh in the 1970s, and I remember hearing him read at Glasgow University late in that decade. I suspect that as well as reading Larkin – whose influence can be heard in some church-going Porter poems ...”

“... of inflation may seem the only remaining option. That was the response in the early 1970s, when Anthony Barber, chancellor of the exchequer in Edward Heath’s government, made his ‘dash for growth’. While never doctrinaire, Heath had begun as something of an economic liberal; but ...”

“... By the early 1950s the Tory Party seemed to require bloody renewal of this sort. Would Anthony Eden wield the knife against its leader, the elderly and infirm Winston Churchill? For Churchill, who was further debilitated by a stroke in 1953, was resolute on one subject: that he would not cede the premiership to Eden. At last, Eden became leader and ...”

“... founders were, from the outset, determined to build a federal Europe. This was why, when Heath took Britain into Europe, he pretended to have ‘the full-hearted consent of the people’ but carefully avoided letting them have any say in the matter. It is also why, when Labour committed itself to a referendum, Jenkins was so horrified that he ...”

“... higher, which would vote Conservative if the Conservative Party were led by Prior, Pym, Gilmour, Heath or whoever.’ So Thatcherism has no majority; it exists ‘at the level of 10 or 15 per cent, whatever it may really be’. Now, if one is going to launch forth as a speaker and writer in political analysis, this won’t do. The polls provide exact figures ...”

“... invited to jump the editorial immigration queue. At six times fewer pages than the next entry (Anthony Thwaite), the answer may be that his is a tourist visa. As their titles suggest, geography is equally crucial to the trade war pitting Longman against Norton. Given the inevitable overlap between their contents, it may be all that allows some harried ...”

“... lento movement is underpinned by pizzicati in a way that fleetingly evokes light-music classics by Anthony Collins (a notable conductor of Façade), Trevor Duncan or Ernest Tomlinson. In a sense (an uncharitable one) Walton is the greatest British composer of light music, transforming it at will but retaining its immediacy in a surprising variety of ...”

“... war’s end; Stalin lasted only until 1953. Sixty-two years in the Commons (11 more than Edward Heath) helped make him a national institution. Yet time alone cannot explain it. What mattered was how Churchill used it, especially after 1945 when, entering his seventies and discernibly more fragile in health, he might have been expected to rest on his ...”

“... were, And lived lesse in awe; Now, God be thanked! People feare More to ofend the law. Anthony Munday, in his play The Downfall of Robert, Earle of Huntington (1598), redated the hero to the end of the 12th century, which had ‘the remarkable effect of reversing his political tendency’. Munday makes Robin’s enemies ‘only the corrupt and the ...”

“... As he writes, the rot started before she took office, but where Wilson, Callaghan and even Heath sought to manage the decline of Britain’s traditional industries, Thatcher removed the state from the equation, except when deploying its enforcers to put down ‘the last great action of the mineworkers’. Lloyd offers a tragic, vaguely nationalist ...”

“... Davie was first offered a job over lunch with Astor at Boodle's club when he was still at Oxford. Anthony Sampson came from Drum magazine in South Africa. Philip Toynbee arrived after his father, the historian Arnold Toynbee, called to wonder if Astor could rescue his son from drink, depression and riotous behaviour. Colin Legum, expelled from his native ...”

“... he does not now intend to sit on the back benches and carp. This isn’t an easy gibe at Mr Heath, for whom I’ve got some sympathy. Pitt had always aspired to be prime minister, but on his own terms; in 1783 he had even refused the King’s invitation to form a ministry because he was not yet ready; defeated, he would never have played second fiddle ...”

“... most conurbations in Britain (relatively few have as yet been completely closed). Both the Mental Heath Foundation and the Audit Commission make the point that the money saved by the closures seems to have ‘leaked’ to other areas of the NHS budget. The disappearance of long-stay beds in mental institutions has put pressure on beds in acute wards and has ...”

“... reptiles in human form. (‘I once had an extraordinary experience with former prime minister Ted Heath,’ Icke told the Guardian in 2006. ‘Both of his eyes, including the whites, turned jet black.’)The plan continues to unfold, regularly missing prophesied deadlines. Only an awakening of ordinary humans from the slumber of ignorance, prompted by heeding ...”

“... added to their burdens, put them under some strain. Hence, though she was in sympathy with Mr Heath on everything except the Common Market, ‘I do think that Mr Wilson, personally, may have seen better in regard to Europe being on the opposition bench with less salary and being older, smaller and under less strain.’ She was vehemently opposed to the ...”