Lloyd George
The chilly charm of Clarissa Eden
Glamorous, enigmatic and well read, Anthony Eden’s wife was a discreet but unmistakable influence in Downing Street in the mid-1950s
The Great War was enough to make grown men weep
Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo it took a mere six weeks for the diplomats of Europe’s…
What if the first world war had ended a year earlier?
One hundred years ago this month, my great-great grandfather sat down to compose a letter which would finish a long…
Drowning in mud and blood
George Orwell’s suggestion that the British remember only the military disasters of the first world war is certainly being borne…
Aussie rules
Some years ago I paid a visit to the site of the Gallipoli landings because I was mildly obsessed with…
Brave, drunken, violent and law-abiding
Here is a stupendous achievement: a narrative history of England which is both thorough and arresting. Very few writers could…
An insider’s view
When Margot Asquith’s name crops up these days, it is usually in a retelling of the story about her meeting…
