London Review of Books

On Thatcher

“... fleet had far more to do with domestic politics and the political reputation of the occupant of 10 Downing Street.Tam Dalyell, 5 April 1984The brutality of the riot police drafted in from southern counties has left deep scars on the minds of the people of this village, and an inheritance of hatred and mistrust of the local police. This hatred will take ...”

Diary

Tom Crewe: The Queen and I, 1 August 2019

“... But at some point I started adding in the famous people I’d seen already. In 2013 I was at 10 Downing Street for a reception – I’d written something for the history section of the website, heady days – and, unfêted at the edge of the room, gazed out of a window onto the garden. There I saw Samantha Cameron and the Cameron children playing with a ...”

My Little Lollipop

Jenny Diski: Christine Keeler, 22 March 2001

The Truth at Last: My Story
by Christine Keeler and Douglas Thompson.
Sidgwick, 279 pp., £16.99, February 2001, 0 283 07291 1Show More

“... of Cliveden, made available to Ward at weekends by Lord Astor, who with his friends, including John Profumo, the Minister for War, would chase a minutely towelled Keeler and others around the swimming pool. But all this, says Keeler, was a front for Ward’s real activity, which was spying for Russia on the British establishment during the months before ...”

Every club in the bag

Michael Howard, 10 September 1992

The Chiefs: The Story of the United Kingdom Chiefs of Staff
by Bill Jackson and Dwin Bramall.
Brassey, 508 pp., £29.95, April 1992, 0 08 040370 0Show More

“... an overriding priority and abolished National Service; and a quartet of a century after that, when John Nott wrote off ‘out of area’ commitments, and slashed back the Navy on the eve of the Falklands affair. But the greatest civilian despot of them all was Winston Churchill, who, having observed the disastrous fumblings of the First World War at first ...”

London Review of Crooks

Robert Marshall-Andrews, 15 July 1982

Rough Justice: The Extraordinary Truth about Charles Richardson and his Gang
by Robert Parker.
Fontana, 352 pp., £1.95, October 1981, 0 00 636354 7Show More

Web of Corruption: The Story of John Poulson and T. Dan Smith
by Raymond Fitzwalter and David Taylor.
Granada, 282 pp., £12.50, October 1981, 0 246 10915 7Show More

Inside Boss: South Africa’s Secret Police
by Gordon Winter.
Penguin, 640 pp., £7.95, October 1981, 9780140057515Show More

Crime in Wartime: A Social History of Crime in World War II
by Edward Smithies.
Allen and Unwin, 219 pp., £12.50, January 1982, 0 04 364020 6Show More

“... the burglaries of Amnesty, Zapu and Anti-Apartheid, and (possibly) the attempted bugging of No 10 Downing Street. The claim (in the blurb) that such revelations are ‘staggering’ is perhaps over-enthusiastic. Richardson, like most of his ilk, was naturally right-wing, and having been introduced to George Winter, ex-burglar, crime reporter and BOSS ...”

It isn’t the lines

Bee Wilson: Paul Newman’s Looks, 16 February 2023

Paul Newman: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man
by Paul Newman, edited by David Rosenthal.
Century, 320 pp., £25, October 2022, 978 1 5291 9706 8Show More

The Last Movie Stars
directed by Ethan Hawke.
HBO/CNNShow More

“... There is often a vacancy to his acting, which can give the illusion of mystery. The producer John Foreman recalled that Newman’s second wife, Joanne Woodward, once said to him: ‘If you think he’s thinking something, he’s not always thinking something.’In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Newman hardly moves his eyes when he speaks – only his mouth. We ...”

An Escalation of Reasonableness

Conor Gearty: Northern Ireland, 6 September 2001

To Raise up a New Northern Ireland: Articles and Speeches 1998-2000
by David Trimble.
Belfast Press, 166 pp., £5.99, July 2001, 0 9539287 1 3Show More

“... in these programmes, ‘we had arrived big-time on the political scene.’ Adams and the SDLP’s John Hume together worked out the theological basis for what, after many drafts, was to become the British-Irish Downing Street Declaration of December 1993 – the document which paved the way for the IRA ceasefire of August ...”

In a Frozen Crouch

Colin Kidd: Democracy’s Ends, 13 September 2018

How Democracy Ends
by David Runciman.
Profile, 249 pp., £14.99, May 2018, 978 1 78125 974 0Show More

Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy Is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth – And How to Fix It
by Dambisa Moyo.
Little, Brown, 296 pp., £20, April 2018, 978 1 4087 1089 0Show More

How Democracies Die
by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.
Viking, 311 pp., £16.99, January 2018, 978 0 241 31798 3Show More

Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy
by William Galston.
Yale, 158 pp., £25, June 2018, 978 0 300 22892 2Show More

“... head of the home civil service, Sir William Armstrong, suffered a dramatic nervous breakdown in Downing Street, convinced that democracy itself was at stake in the miners’ confrontation with Ted Heath’s government. When Armstrong’s colleague Sir Douglas Allen, the permanent secretary at the Treasury, speculated openly about coming in to work and ...”

Anti-Liberalism

Alan Brinkley, 7 January 1988

Armed Truce
by Hugh Thomas.
Hamish Hamilton, 667 pp., £14.95, November 1986, 0 241 11843 3Show More

The Wise Men
by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas.
Faber, 853 pp., £15.95, January 1987, 0 571 14606 6Show More

Ike
by Piers Brendon.
Secker, 478 pp., £12.95, January 1987, 0 436 06813 3Show More

May-Day
by Michael Beschloss.
Faber, 494 pp., £14.95, November 1986, 0 571 14593 0Show More

“... to the reckless domestic and international adventurism of his liberal successors. Admirers of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and of the dynamism of their years in office interpret the new defence of Eisenhower – correctly – as an assault on their own belief in active, affirmative government, an assault different in its origins but oddly similar in ...”

After the May Day Flood

Seumas Milne, 5 June 1997

“... squeamish about dispensing with such footling restrictions, left-of-centre figures such as Cook, John Prescott, Margaret Beckett and Chris Smith have been allowed to surround themselves with like-minded ministers. The man who has replaced the Blairite factotum Stephen Byers, for example, in charge of minimum wage and trade-union rights, is Ian McCartney ...”

Squeamish

Peter Clarke: Lloyd George versus Haig, 3 April 2003

Lloyd George: War Leader
by John Grigg.
Allen Lane, 670 pp., £25, October 2002, 9780713993431Show More

“... a great personage, there is a need to look elsewhere for a more discriminating view. Inevitably, John Grigg’s biography of Lloyd George invites such comparisons and they redound almost wholly to Grigg’s credit, except in one obvious respect: beginning at much the same time, Gilbert actually finished the job, albeit reinforced in his labours by a research ...”

Downhill from Here

Ian Jack: The 1970s, 27 August 2009

When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies
by Andy Beckett.
Faber, 576 pp., £20, May 2009, 978 0 571 22136 3Show More

“... middle man,’ the election graffiti said. Conflicts resolved over ‘beer and sandwiches’ at Downing Street became one of the clichés of the era, though Jones is said to have preferred goujons of sole. The right depicted the arrangement as trade unionists ‘holding the country to ransom’, while some on the left attacked it as a sell-out. In the view ...”

A Misreading of the Law

Conor Gearty: Why didn’t Campbell sue?, 19 February 2004

Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly CMG
by Lord Hutton.
Stationery Office, 740 pp., £70, January 2004, 0 10 292715 4Show More

“... to deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of a decision to do so and (2) that 10 Downing Street ordered the dossier to be sexed up.’1 These were the ‘allegations attacking the integrity of the government which drew Dr Kelly into the controversy about the broadcasts’ and which Lord Hutton therefore considered it right that he ‘should ...”

Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat

David Runciman: Thatcher’s Rise, 6 June 2013

Margaret Thatcher: The Authorised Biography. Vol. I: Not for Turning
by Charles Moore.
Allen Lane, 859 pp., £30, April 2013, 978 0 7139 9282 3Show More

“... something, because she’d go on talking about it for some days afterwards,’ one member of her Downing Street staff complained. ‘She could carry this to really quite absurd lengths for a prime minister.’ Moore writes: ‘Despite the fact that Mrs Thatcher was an egotist, she was also almost always extremely considerate towards staff and their ...”

Carnival of Self-Harm

Tom Crewe: Good Riddance to the Tories, 20 June 2024

Haywire: A Political History of Britain since 2000
by Andrew Hindmoor.
Allen Lane, 628 pp., £35, June 2024, 978 0 241 65171 1Show More

No Way Out: Brexit from the Backstop to Boris
by Tim Shipman.
William Collins, 698 pp., £26, April 2024, 978 0 00 830894 0Show More

The Abuse of Power: Confronting Injustice in Public Life
by Theresa May.
Headline, 368 pp., £12.99, May 2024, 978 1 0354 0991 4Show More

The Conservative Party after Brexit: Turmoil and Transformation
by Tim Bale.
Polity, 368 pp., £25, March 2023, 978 1 5095 4601 5Show More

Johnson at 10: The Inside Story
by Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell.
Atlantic, 640 pp., £12.99, April 2024, 978 1 83895 804 6Show More

The Plot: The Political Assassination of Boris Johnson
by Nadine Dorries.
HarperCollins, 336 pp., £25, November 2023, 978 0 00 862342 5Show More

Politics on the Edge: A Memoir from Within
by Rory Stewart.
Vintage, 454 pp., £10.99, June 2024, 978 1 5299 2286 8Show More

Ten Years to Save the West: Lessons from the Only Conservative in the Room
by Liz Truss.
Biteback, 311 pp., £20, April 2024, 978 1 78590 857 6Show More

Tory Nation: The Dark Legacy of the World’s Most Successful Political Party
by Samuel Earle.
Simon and Schuster, 294 pp., £10.99, February 2024, 978 1 3985 1853 7Show More

“... on ministers’ interests. It was revealed that Johnson had refurbished the prime minister’s Downing Street flat with £112,000 provided by Tory donors, but Lord Geidt, Allen’s successor, found that Johnson had been unaware of where the money had come from. Geidt himself resigned after his decision was subjected to criticism (he wasn’t ...”

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