“... to allow the civil service to prepare for a Leave victory, for fear it would look defeatist. After Theresa May replaced him as prime minister, it became clear that no one had any idea what to do, or even what could be done. ‘The British state had not done a shred of preparation,’ May’s deputy, Damian Green, told ...”

“... and this has required them to emphasise the uniqueness of its misdoings. Even so, history may supply some useful parallels.The shock of the pandemic has exposed some uncomfortable truths about the modern British state: its vast emergency powers, but also its unpreparedness for the unexpected, its scope for inefficiency under lax leadership, and its ...”

“... our MPs merely put in for duck-houses, moat-clearance and jumbo TV sets). And as anti-Zionism may often disguise anti-Semitism, so Europhobia proves a handy disguise for wider xenophobia. But of course it wasn’t just the press. Few prime ministers in the years since Edward Heath signed us into the EEC have found it either natural or politically ...”

“... to go through the details of the death certificate. Name: Hugh Swynnerton Thomas. Date of death: 7 May 2017. Your relation to him? Son. A few years ago, when I asked my father why he wasn’t going to the house in south-west France where he had for several summers spent a few weeks, his answer sounded straightforward. ‘Too far from Figeac,’ he said. Too ...”

“... month I was granted British citizenship and I very much love this country. Possibly I may die, but I will die as a free person, and my son and wife are free people. And Britain is a great country.’ Litvinenko died four days later, on 23 November 2006. Six hours before it happened Scotland Yard got a phone call from the Atomic Weapons ...”

“... our commission maintained a discreet and sad silence. By a happy contrast, just a week earlier, Theresa May had underscored the government’s à la carte approach to human rights when she embraced other judgments of the European Court in deciding to intervene to stop the hacker Gary McKinnon being sent to the US, because to do so ‘would give rise to ...”

“... anyone who wasn’t Syrian, Iraqi or Afghan; later, everyone. Since then, while the rhetoric may vary, the actions taken have been broadly consistent: a shoring up of the old border regime, the toughening of conditions inside Europe to deter migrants, and the further outsourcing of European border control to governments in Asia, the Middle East and ...”

“... as a ‘faux pas’, and ‘An Epistle from Mrs Bustle to Mrs Pad’, printed in the Times in May 1793, ends with the lines: ‘A projection much better, behind than before,/Because it make virgins now look like a ——.’ Rauser wants us to see this strange fad as part of the broader drive to transform women into living statues. Sir Gilbert ...”

“... would be easily repeated. It’s possible Labour should have supported a soft Brexit as agreed by Theresa May; but that would be to ignore May’s disinclination to compromise and her vulnerability to backbench rebellion, not to mention the likelihood that such a move on Labour’s part would have blown apart the ...”

“... there has been a considerable volume of litigation in relation to closed material. Be that as it may, the Strasbourg court’s comment provided the inspiration for legislation in this country, and, in 1997 the Special Immigration Appeals Commission or SIAC was created to hear appeals in immigration or deportation cases where evidence is involved whose ...”

“... It made​ perfect sense that the first port of call on President Trump’s first foreign trip, in May, was Riyadh. Saudi Arabia – the world’s second largest oil producer (after Russia), the world’s biggest military spender as a proportion of GDP, the main sponsor of Islamist fighting groups across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and Iraq, the leader of a coalition in a devastating war against Yemeni rebels now in its third year – is a country one can do business with, even as the most ardent Kremlinologists in the West struggle to understand it ...”

“... diatribe against Brussels, he told Cameron: ‘I think it will be a disaster if we leave. I may even have to relocate some of my businesses to be inside the EU.’ Cameron has some regrets about what happened next: It has been reported that I went on to ask him to sack Paul Dacre. Frankly, I wish I had – and I wish it had happened. I suspect he does ...”

“... can hold my head up high and say that now it is sorted’.The Infected Blood Inquiry, announced by Theresa May in 2017, began proceedings the following year. It has now heard oral evidence from more than two hundred people, with many thousands of pages of documents and written submissions, from family members as well as victims. Gary, Colin, Joe and Bob ...”

“... in this country? Don’t the workers earn decent salaries?’ The Cubans moved to the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, a hotspot favoured by the interwar jazz scene, whose glory days seemed long gone. It turned out to be such a brilliant publicity move that Hall has to beat back the myth that the whole drama was choreographed by the Cubans in advance.To cheers ...”

“... been a Habsburg dynasty in England. Unfortunately, her ghastly gynaecological difficulties, which may have shortened her life, meant that her much awaited pregnancy turned out to be a delusion. A fed-up and unpopular Philip soon departed to fight his Continental wars, returning only in March 1557 to plead for English military support. Parliament gave it ...”