“... plainly, and directly against the essence of a Common-wealth … That the sovereign power may be divided. For what is it to divide the Power of a Common-wealth but to Dissolve it? For Powers divided mutually destroy each other.’ In what Hobbes called ‘a mixt monarchy’, where the power of levying money depended on a general assembly, the power ...”

“... is impeachment.The constitution provides that a majority of the House of Representatives may impeach (that is, indict) the president for ‘treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours’. A trial then takes place in the Senate, where conviction and removal requires a two-thirds vote. As on numerous other matters, the constitution is ...”

“... either through a sheer absence of acclaim, or through outbursts of denunciation, which other users may in turn wish to ‘like’ or share.The radical difference between the infrastructure overseen by Mark Zuckerberg today and the one rolled out by George Gallup in the 1930s is that we can all now potentially act as the pollster. Here’s my dog: like or ...”

“... celebrities (referred to by netizens as ‘little fresh meat’), and one of its next projects may well be to tame them. Sing and dance for the party! (And if you don’t, your appearances in public will be rare.)Managing domestic issues – social media, traditional media and security enforcement – is not the only measure of a successful party ...”

“... but the unforeseen consequence of social and economic disaster. The poorer half of the population may end up, after a war or a plague, with a larger relative share of the national income and wealth, but only at the cost of surviving a catastrophe. It seems that the only satisfaction they stand to gain from such levelling events is the thin gruel of ...”

“... by the overseas deputies, including Senghor, but rejected by the French in a referendum in May 1946.The following month, the Communists lost their dominant position in the Assembly, pro-colonial and settler interests regrouped, and De Gaulle publicly stated his opposition to a federalist union that would compromise metropolitan power and authority. The ...”

“... spelling question, expecting to be asked to puff out my cheeks or wiggle my eyebrows. The tumour may or may not have found its way into functionally useful tissue. In order to decide how best to treat it, the doctors would have to find out why I’d got the spelling question wrong. Until the 1960s, ‘Are you left-handed ...”

“... de Waal suggests that anthropomorphic language, although it can at first seem sentimental, may turn out to be a more accurate, even more scientific, way of describing animal behaviour. ‘Anthropomorphism is problematic only when the human-animal comparison is a stretch,’ he writes, ‘such as with regards to species distant from us.’ Apes often ...”

“... Word that you are, that wounds you, bores you or carries you away.’ In this language we may hear something of the young girl’s father, disobeyed in the letter but followed in the spirit. Who could resist the destructive and the demonic? Though I’m not sure about the clinging.Kristeva likes apparent contradictions, though hers aren’t as unruly ...”

“... face a likely truth of helplessness – that the inflated will to/gauge and skewer each wrong turn may blank out what’s far worse/to bear: impersonal hazard, the humiliating lack of much control –/I don’t get past this thought with any confidence.(‘Seven Strangely Exciting Lies’)Riley has written almost as many books on feminism, motherhood and ...”

“... doing.’ He told journalists that at least some of the deaths of incarcerated people this year may have been due to ‘pre-existing conditions’. During his election campaign Adams promised to close Rikers, but his commitment appears to be wavering. The city budget for the coming year provides funding for an additional 578 corrections officers. Jarrod ...”

“... But protest is not the same as a whole-hearted endorsement of far-right positions. Meloni may have warned France and Germany that ‘the party is over,’ but the Fratelli are condemned to continue the ‘reforms’ started by Draghi: if Italy doesn’t meet 55 ‘milestones’ by December, Brussels won’t release the billions the country desperately ...”

“... with ‘meat, fish, fruit or vegetables’ and fail to mention other ingredients on which a curry may be based, such as paneer, the universal cheese of India?The most striking omission of all from the OED definition is India itself (though the section on etymology notes the word’s Tamil origins: ‘Tamil kari sauce, relish for rice, Kannada karil, whence ...”

“... the means.Prospecting a hundred years, H.G. Wells wrote: ‘The London citizen of the year 2000 AD may have a choice of nearly all England and Wales south of Nottingham and east of Exeter as his suburb.’ He was right – but only partly right, there are no absolutes here. What he and William Morris, George Gissing, Ebenezer Howard and a sprawl of ...”

“... version or the other must be true: but, again, it is the way our minds work. Both interpretations may have their own kind of truth, or lack of it. When T.E. Lawrence wrote in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom of his flogging and rape by the Turkish officer at Deraa, one of his biographers takes the account at face value, and another as total fantasy. A writer who ...”