Downing Street 101

Posted on by Frank Brinkley

Steve Richards’s new book is an engaging survey of modern prime ministers. These leaders – from Harold Wilson to Theresa May, whose defenestration is alluded to in skilful late additions – qualify as modern in two regards. First, they are figures of the television age (the more recent ones are also victims of the social […]

Kind of Blue

Posted on by Frank Brinkley

This book made me regret that Enoch Powell is no longer alive. This is not because I have the slightest nostalgia for Powell the politician, but because he was such a brilliantly savage reviewer. Only the poison ducts in his pen could have done justice to Cameron’s style. This mixes chatty, cliché-ridden informality (heads are ‘stuck firmly in the sand’; ‘crunch time’ comes) with long-winded portentousness

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