Whereas for Scotland national identity has been emphasised and preserved by formal governmental and legal structures, in Wales these have had to be created and have mostly not been permanent. Welshmen,...
Some weeks ago Sir Isaiah Berlin gave a broadcast in which he described his first visit to the legendary Russian poet Anna Akhmatova in Moscow in 1945 – a visit cut short in its prime by...
With all the enthusiasm which an ornithologist might display on sighting a Dartford Warbler, the Financial Times a few weeks ago reported somewhat breathlessly that it had spotted a youthful...
Two months after the suspension of Stormont in 1972, Belfast’s retiring Lord Mayor, Sir Joseph Cairns, delivered a farewell speech in which he reflected on the political situation. Ulster,...
How do you measure literacy? Hardly – without distorting language in a way that could itself be called illiterate – by quoting the fustian prose or mixed metaphors of a writer you...
Ford Madox Ford has been lucky in his admirers, if ‘luck’ is the word. It is no small thing to have inspired two such magnificent poems as Lowell’s ‘Ford Madox Ford’...
A few years ago, when I was reviewing a book on Women in Social Work, I made a vow to myself that I would never again engage in discussion of ‘Women in’ any sphere. It seemed to me...
Six months after its birth, the Social Democratic Party remains an astonishing force in British politics. The opinion polls continue to put an SDP/Liberal alliance ahead of Conservative or Labour...
Soviet troops are not instinctive, rapacious killers nor are they the political descendants of Genghis Khan. The soldiers who put me on board their convoy in the snows of the Hindu Kush last year...
This is a short book, scarcely more than a long essay, on a subject vastly investigated and written about. Professor Skinner’s powers of compression and command of the evidence provide as...
He has come a long way. Born the Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, he inevitably became by public-school nickname ‘Wedgie’ and later, by his own socialist deed-poll, plain ‘Tony...
The pregnancy was long, difficult and ridden with anxiety, but the birth was easy and infancy has been a triumph. Unfortunately, however, Mr Bradley’s instant history of the first few...
The state of play over the biographising of Anthony Eden is one of some interest. He offered the task to the late Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, author of many major books including a study of the...
My dear friends, I have been thinking about you and wondering if you were worried about us. What can I tell you? It isn’t good, but it’s better than it was, politically. Economically...
Patrick Cosgrave presents us in this short book with a remarkable analysis of why Mr Butler was never chosen to be prime minister. When I think of Rab Butler, I recall Addison’s words:...
As Philip Elliott and Philip Schlesinger argue in their admirable paper, ‘Eurocommunism: Their Word or Ours?’ (the most original contribution to the volume edited by David Childs),...
As the sullen summer of ’81 ends, we know that we shall remember it for images of violence: a soldier writhing aflame on the streets of Belfast, rioters on British streets using petrol...
This is the first of two volumes designed to describe the British press and its connection with politics and politicians from 1850 to 1951. It is a formidable task, and one cannot be surprised...