Hard news really is hard. It sticks not in the craw but in the mind. It has an almost physical effect, causing fear, interest, laughter or shock.

Hard news really is hard. It sticks not in the craw but in the mind. It has an almost physical effect, causing fear, interest, laughter or shock.

The great background question about the Labour governments of the sixties is whether with a stronger leader they could have gripped the country's big problems and dealt with them. How did it happen that a cabinet of such brilliant, such clever and self-confident people achieved so little? In part, it was the effect of the whirling court politics demonstrated by 'In Place of Strife'.

The British happened to the rest of the world. Now the world happens to Britain.

The only time I penetrated Tony Blair's defenses over Iraq was by keeping eye contact while telling him he never seemed to by sorry

Journalism is nine-tenths being in the right places at the right time.

Androgynous fashion, long hair, the Pill, a new interest in the inner psychological life - an unabashed sloppiness, if you will - really marks the sixties. It was when Britain went girlie. And what do girls do? Girls shop.