“... analysed in official reports: the former trade-unionist and chair of the Labour Party Tony Clarke was harsh on the Burnley rioters, insisting that ‘what was described as a “race riot” was in fact a series of criminal acts.’ Makin-Waite rejects the labelling of rioters as mob-like but is wary of romanticising the participants: ‘Those who ...”

“... originality. Trafalgar has been written about by great numbers of very well qualified people, from Clarke and McArthur in 1809 to Tom Pocock in 1988: this imposing mass of books, together with the place of Nelson and of the battle in the English tradition, have caused John Keegan to approach the subject with awe, and awe alas has led to a stilted, almost ...”

“... There wasn’t anything inevitable about David Cameron’s rise. If Kenneth Clarke had stirred himself into running something like a campaign when competing for the leadership with Iain Duncan Smith and been ready to appear more tractable on Europe; if David Davis had moved decisively in the immediate aftermath of Michael Howard’s resignation or been a more fluent speaker; if Howard had offered Cameron the shadow chancellorship or George Osborne had not accepted it – if these or any number of other contingencies had been otherwise, Cameron might not have become leader ...”

“... men behind their barricades in Paternoster Square. One by one or in neatly opposed couples – Ken Clarke and Shirley Williams, say – funeral attendees were interrogated about the legacy. Rarely can such an Alice in Wonderland charivari of local stereotypes have been assembled, some of them (like Dave and Samantha Cameron) quite obviously having a good ...”

“... done had he been in love with her! The other man was one who had engaged Stead as his secretary. William Blech – Bill Blake as he was to become – was a New York Jew, autodidact, intellectual, Marxist, and investments manager of a grain firm then operating out of London. When Blake learned, from a disdainful remark of Duncan’s, that his secretary ...”

“... and the most intellectually distinguished of all European universities, the home of Duns Scotus, William Ockham and the Mertonian school. Volume III brings us to the Renaissance. We notice immediately the firm direction of the editor, James McConica, who has imposed an order on the writing of the history of the University in the 16th century that is uncommon ...”

“... secretary and an ogre to Zionists to this day. It was so slipshod and inaccurate that Thurston Clarke in the New York Times thought the most charitable speculation was that it had been ‘dictated but never read, neither by the former prime minister nor by his publishers’. After​ the brief and futile interlude of James Callaghan’s premiership, a new ...”

“... half-hidden by the computer screens at which they all sit. It could be a stock exchange, or even William Hill’s. Bigger screens let the spectators follow the proceedings and, via a landline, do the same for the media in their own separate room where, at the touch of a button, they can get interesting passages printed out from the simultaneous transcript ...”

“... and decided to nurture it, and who left his large library to her; the archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft, who acceded to her request for charity and put her in touch with the publisher Richard Wilkin, who printed almost all of her works; and the one-time Oxford philosopher and theologian John Norris, who encouraged her thinking and who in 1695 ...”

“... to his wife for copying. It was through the Bible Society that he first met his future wife, Mary Clarke. He married her in 1840, when he was 36 and she (a prosperous widow with a grown-up daughter) was 43. She was soon eagerly at work, helping him with The Bible in Spain, based on the long, lively letters he had sent home to the Bible Society in London. This ...”

“... which opened the same year as Fraser, concentrated on British artists, such as Phillip King, William Tucker, Barry Flanagan, Paul Huxley and later Bridget Riley, whereas Fraser covered British, American and European art. John Kasmin, who opened his gallery the following year, dealt in British and American art. He and Fraser were the rivals for ...”

“... North America. It wasn’t until 1909, during his first and only trip to America, to deliver the Clarke Lectures, that Freud fully embraced Jones, praising him for having ‘conquered America’, and thereby preparing the way for Freud’s own arrival. When William James and many other leading American intellectuals turned ...”

“... of rock.’) The students in the audience would have had memories of the Conservative Party under William Hague, who led it to defeat in 2001; his successor, the tragi-farcical Iain Duncan Smith, who lasted until November 2003; and Michael Howard, who stayed on after losing a third general election in 2005 in order to oversee an extended leadership ...”

“... Tupelo. His older twin, Jesse Garon, was stillborn. (There was ugly gossip later that the doctor, William Robert Hunt, might have had a drink; that he might have saved Jesse if he hadn’t been so preoccupied with the surprise appearance of a second child. But the Presleys were satisfied with his work and Dr Hunt received his standard $15 payment from the ...”

“... Adamski provided photos of the Venusian spaceship. Not everyone was convinced – Arthur C. Clarke pointed out that the pictures bore an ‘uncanny resemblance to electric light fittings with table-tennis balls fixed underneath’ – but thousands were, and Adamski became an international sensation. His book Flying Saucers Have Landed ...”