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The Devil's Tune
''The Devil's Tune'' is a novel by British politician Iain Duncan Smith, published on 6 November 2003, the same day he left office as leader of the Conservative Party after losing a no confidence vote. The book is notable for its uniformly negative reception, selling only 18 copies in its first week of release. Among its negative reviews were from Sam Leith in ''The Daily Telegraph'', who wrote, "And I honestly wish I didn't have to say this, because it feels like kicking a man when he is down... but, really, it's terrible. Human sympathy strains in one direction; critical judgment the other. Terrible, terrible, terrible". John Sutherland, the Northcliffe Professor of English literature at University College London, said "IDS has as much chance of doing a Winston Churchill as Rapper Tony Benn has of going quadruple platinum". For ''The Guardian'', Peter Preston said, "His prose ranges from lumpen to beserkly lush... the plotting is full of clumsy clotting". Two of Smith's Conse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iain Duncan Smith
Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born George Ian Duncan Smith; 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Chingford and Woodford Green, formerly Chingford, since 1992. The son of W. G. G. Duncan Smith, a Royal Air Force flying ace, Duncan Smith was born in Edinburgh and raised in Solihull. After education at the training school and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he served in the Scots Guards from 1975 to 1981, seeing tours in Northern Ireland and Rhodesia. He joined the Conservative Party in 1981. After unsuccessfully contesting Bradford West in 1987, he was elected to Parliament at the 1992 general election. He was not a minister during the premiership of John Major. During the leadership of William Hague he served as Shadow Secretary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five UK Parliament constituency, constituencies. Ideologically an Economic liberalism, economic liberal and British Empire, imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to Spencer family, a wealthy, aristocratic family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British Raj, Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2003 British Novels
3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societies. Evolution of the Arabic digit The use of three lines to denote the number 3 occurred in many writing systems, including some (like Roman and Chinese numerals) that are still in use. That was also the original representation of 3 in the Brahmic (Indian) numerical notation, its earliest forms aligned vertically. However, during the Gupta Empire the sign was modified by the addition of a curve on each line. The Nāgarī script rotated the lines clockwise, so they appeared horizontally, and ended each line with a short downward stroke on the right. In cursive script, the three strokes were eventually connected to form a glyph resembling a with an additional stroke at the bottom: ३. The Indian digits spread to the Caliphate in the 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-reformed Russian. ; ), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. He received nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1902 to 1906 and for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902, and 1909; the fact that he never won is a major controversy. Born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, Tolstoy's notable works include the novels ''War and Peace'' (1869) and ''Anna Karenina'' (1878), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He first achieved literary acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, ''Childhood'', '' Boyhood'', and ''Youth'' (1852–1856), and '' Sevastopol Sketches'' (1855), based upon his experiences in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ann Widdecombe
Ann Noreen Widdecombe (born 4 October 1947) is a British politician, author and television personality. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone and The Weald, and the former Maidstone constituency, from 1987 to 2010 and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England from 2019 to 2020. Originally a member of the Conservative Party, she was a member of the Brexit Party from 2019 until it was renamed Reform UK in 2021. Born in Bath, Somerset, Widdecombe read Latin at the University of Birmingham and later studied philosophy, politics and economics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She is a convert from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism and was a member of the Conservative Christian Fellowship. She served as Minister of State for Employment from 1994 to 1995 and Minister of State for Prisons from 1995 to 1997. She later served in the Shadow Cabinet of William Hague as Shadow Secretary of State for Health from 1998 to 1999 and Shadow Home Secretary from 199 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwina Currie
Edwina Currie (' Cohen; born 13 October 1946) is a British writer, broadcaster and former politician, serving as Conservative Party Member of Parliament for South Derbyshire from 1983 until 1997. She was a Junior Health Minister for two years, resigning in 1988 during the salmonella-in-eggs controversy. By the time Currie lost her seat as an MP in 1997, she had begun a new career as a novelist and broadcaster. She is the author of six novels, and has also written four works of non-fiction. In September 2002, publication of Currie's ''Diaries (1987–92)'' caused a sensation, as they revealed a four-year affair with colleague (and later Prime Minister) John Major between 1984 and 1988. Currie’s record as Junior Health Minister was heavily scrutinised in the 2010s, and to a lesser extent at the time, for her close relationship with Jimmy Savile; she hired Savile as chairman of Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, where it is now known he molested and raped mentally unstable pati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Preston
Peter John Preston (23 May 1938 – 6 January 2018) was a British journalist and author. He was editor of ''The Guardian'' for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995. Early life Peter Preston was born in Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire, the son of John Preston, a greengrocery business manager, and his wife, Kathlyn Preston (née Chell). He grew up in the village of Quorn, two miles south of Loughborough. His father died from polio when Preston was a child, and he subsequently caught the disease; he spent 18 months in and out of hospital, including time in an iron lung. The disease caused permanent damage to his body. He was educated at Loughborough Grammar School and St John's College, Oxford, where he edited the student paper '' Cherwell''. Career Preston started his career at the ''Liverpool Daily Post'' in 1959, and joined ''The Guardian'' (then the ''Manchester Guardian'') in 1963. He rose to become editor in 1975 and remained so for more than twenty years, retiring in 1995. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament for Bristol South East (UK Parliament constituency), Bristol South East and Chesterfield (UK Parliament constituency), Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 Bristol South East by-election, 1950 and 2001 United Kingdom general election, 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014. The son of a Liberal Party (UK), Liberal and later Labour Party politician, Benn was born in Westminster and privately educated at Westminster School. He was elected for Bristol South East at the 1950 United Kingdom general election, 1950 general election but inherited Viscount Stansgate, his father's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = £1.544 billion (2019/20) , chancellor = Anne, Princess Royal(as Chancellor of the University of London) , provost = Michael Spence , head_label = Chair of the council , head = Victor L. L. Chu , free_label = Visitor , free = Sir Geoffrey Vos , academic_staff = 9,100 (2020/21) , administrative_staff = 5,855 (2020/21) , students = () , undergrad = () , postgrad = () , coordinates = , campus = Urban , city = London, England , affiliations = , colours = Purple and blue celeste , nickname ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thriller (genre)
Thriller is a genre of fiction, having numerous, often overlapping subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the mood (psychology), moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, Psychomotor agitation, excitement, Surprise (emotion), surprise, anticipation (emotion), anticipation and anxiety. Successful examples of thrillers are Alfred Hitchcock filmography, the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Thrillers generally keep the audience on the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax (narrative), climax. The cover-up of important information is a common element. Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists, unreliable narrators, and cliffhangers are used extensively. A thriller is often a villain-driven plot, whereby they present obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. The most common genres that overlap with the thriller genre include crime fiction, crime, horror fiction, horror and detective fiction. Characteristics Writer Vla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Sutherland (author)
John Andrew Sutherland (born 9 October 1938) is a British academic, newspaper columnist and author. He is Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London. Biography After graduating from the University of Leicester in 1964, Sutherland gained a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, where he began his academic career as an assistant lecturer. He specialises in Victorian fiction, 20th-century literature, and the history of publishing. Among his works of scholarship is the ''Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction'' (known in the US as ''Stanford Companion'', 1989), a comprehensive encyclopaedia of Victorian fiction. A second edition was published in 2009 with 900 biographical entries, synopses of over 600 novels, and extensive background material on publishers, reviewers, and readers. Apart from writing regularly for ''The Guardian'' newspaper, Sutherland has published eighteen books and is editing the forthcoming ''Oxford Companion to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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