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“... was an annex of manners. The triply-named bookman – Arthur Quiller-Couch, Arthur Clutton-Brock, John Cann Bailey – fumed or fawned for seven hundred inconsequential words and then retired to his club, where he could doze amid a cloudy consensus. At times intellectual life was more strenuous than that. May quotes from the diary of ...”

“... wisdom and triumph of the imperialist leaders and dictators of Portugal; and a new celebration by John Cann demonstrates this strange revival. But the manner of the winding-up of the Portuguese African empire, as its records prove, was in fact a triumph for anti-imperialist good sense. Whether it will be remembered as such outside (or even ...”

“... Yet he was not top of the Lonrho Largesse League. That honour undoubtedly went to Sir Edward Du Cann, the oleaginous Tory MP for Taunton, who joined Lonrho soon after his bank, Keyser Ullman, had helped Lonrho out of a jam with loans that other more patrician banks would not stomach. Keyser Ullman went bust in the property crash of the mid-Seventies leaving ...”

“... The new select committee system was launched in 1979 with a characteristic flourish by Norman St John Stevas, then Leader of the House of Commons. MPs were ‘embarking upon a series of changes that could constitute the most important Parliamentary reforms of the century’. The proposals were ‘intended to redress the balance of power’ – as between Parliament and the executive – ‘to enable the House of Commons to do more efficiently the job it has been elected to do ...”

“... Thatcher was not the only standard-bearer for the anti-Heath factions. There was Edward Du Cann, who represented swashbuckling capitalism; Keith Joseph, who represented high-minded anti-statism; Geoffrey Howe, who represented disciplined proto-monetarism. But she saw them all off easily. In this she was greatly helped by their obvious lack of ...”