People From London

"For my part, I plead guilty to having tweaked, in my time, the Remainer nose of the otherwise admirable FT but your writer’s ludicrous caricature of the Mail, before I stepped aside at 70 after 26 years in the chair, is unrecognisable from the paper that in those years increased its circulation by nearly a million in a contracting market and made billions in profits. ... It also — with the selfless efforts of the magnificent team of journalists Lord Rothermere allowed me to put together — won an unprecedented number of awards for the quality of its journalism and its countless great campaigns whether launching the war on plastic, cleaning up Britain, Alzheimer’s awareness, dignity for the elderly or justice for [the murdered teenager] Stephen Lawrence. ... As for Mr Greig, I congratulate him for making a solid start as editor and continuing so many of those campaigns but I’m sure he’ll forgive me for suggesting that he (or his PR) defers his next lunch with the FT until he has notched up a small fraction of those journalists' achievements."

"Let it be said loud and clear that the Mail, unlike News International, did NOT hack people's phones or pay the police for stories. I have sworn that on oath. No, our crime is more heinous than that. It is that the Mail constantly dares to stand up to the liberal-left consensus that dominates so many areas of British life and instead represents the views of the ordinary people who are our readers and who don't have a voice in today's political landscape and are too often ignored by today's ruling elite. ... The truth is that there is an unpleasant intellectual snobbery about the Mail in leftish circles, for whom the word 'suburban' is an obscenity. They simply cannot comprehend how a paper that opposes the mindset they hold dear can be so successful and so loved by its millions of readers. Well, I'm proud that the Mail stands up for those readers."

"[W]hat moves me most are the countless messages from readers worried about whether the Mail will continue its support for EU withdrawal. My answer to them — and others — is unequivocal. Support for Brexit is in the DNA of both the Daily Mail and, more pertinently, its readers. Any move to reverse this would be editorial and commercial suicide."

"It is nearly three years since the Mails headline "Enemies of the people" detonated a national debate over whether judges were hijacking political powers. Written five minutes before deadline, this somewhat clunky reference to an Ibsen play was meant to capture Brexit ministers’ rage at the court’s ‘undemocratic’ decision to insist parliament must vote on triggering Article 50. Interestingly, the Telegraph’s front page that day, "The judges versus the people", was almost identical, but it was the Mail, the chatterati’s favourite bogeyman, that was criticised. Was this fair? ... That "Enemies" front page, which reflected the view of ministers and a great many Britons, was excoriated by the same liberals. So do I regret it? Hell no! Newspapers are meant to be provocative, outrageous even. Striking the right balance between the law and politics is never going to be easy. If that front page helped raise consciousness about this vital debate, then I can face my maker with equanimity."

"There she was, Beer's Unity, with almost every sail set and filled so that she appeared to be leaning forward into the surging spray beneath her beakhead. The huge broad-pendant straight out like painted metal, a picture of naval strength at its best."

"...on this September morning in 1812, while the Indomitable held her same course under reduced canvas, the ship's small drummers and fifers marched and countermarched up and down the crowded gundeck, the familiar tune Portsmouth Lass lively enough to set a man's foot tapping, or purse his lips in a silent whistle."

"Even in war it is necessary to love another."

"‘A general will say, "Order the 87th to advance." And if they are not enough or are hacked down, he will send in another regiment. He sees no faces, hears no pitiful cries which will never be answered, only flags, pins on maps.’"

"He stared into darkness, seeing the last of the horizon. Then he touched the weathered quarterdeck rail. Aloud he said ‘We'll fight very soon, my girl. You and me. Never ask the bloody reason, only fight and win!’"

"‘Never speak of a last letter to anbody, doi you hear me? for it may well be your last, if you dwell on it too much!’"

"‘Men, Mr Blythe. Ordinary, everyday men — you'd never notice any of them in a street or working in the fields in England right? [...] But they are your answer. They are the strength of a ship. So let them not die to no good purpose.’"

"Adam grasped the rail as gun by gun the American began to retaliate [...] He winced as he felt the iron smashing into the hull or through the rigging overhead."

"He saw himself reflected in other people's faces, and the horror and the pity he saw there had never ceased to wound him."

"Every ball was finding a target; and there were wild cheers as the American's forecastle was blasted to splintered, and one of her bow-chasers was hurled aside on to its crew."

"Now he could see the difference. One hundred and eighty feet overall, and of some fourteen hundred tons, her broad beam betrayed that she had been built originally for the line of battle. Her sail plan had changed little, he thought. With a wind over the quarter she would run like a deer if properly handled."

"Released from the land Indomitable heeled over to the thrust of canvas and rudder, the sea almost brushing her lee gunports while she came about, sails thundering as fore and mainsails were hauled and beaten into submission."

"God and the navy we adore, when danger threatens but not before!"

"...the American's upper yards and punctured sails rose above the fog of gunfire like a cliff."

"Designed originally as a third-rate of sixty-four guns, she had been cut down to her present seize by the removal of most of her upper deck and corresponding armament. But her forty twenty-four pounders remained, with an additional four eighteen-pounders for bow and stern-chasers."

"‘I am telling you you must not care, sir. The three men died, but they helped to give us a small advance knowledge which we may use against the enemy. At the conference tomorrow they would all answer the same. A few lives to save the many is any captain's rule.’"

"'Remember, Thomas a victory now will put heart into the ordinary people at home. They've had much to bear over the years.It's not only sailors who suffer in a war, you know.'"

"Wars were not made by young men, he thought, yet they had to fight them."

"They don't have to fight wars! it mmight knock some sense into therir heads if they did!"

"As the wind and quarter-sea had mounted the Indomitable, big though she was, had seemed to bound from trough to trough like the lion she followed, sail and spindrift pouring from the bulging canvas like tropical rain."

"Damnation on doubt. It kills more good sailors than round shot!"

"Seven years. It seemed impossible. So much had happened since that time. Friends killed: fine ships lost or battered into hulks in every corner of the world and across the ocean."

"There will always be slaves, no matter what people promise and pretend."

"'Do more than think about it. You are a flag-officer, and must not involve yourself with the affairs of subordinates. You command, they obey, it is the order of things, as well as you know.'"

"Routine and discipline. It held the ship together no less securely than copper and tar."

"I have always said that a captain should act on his own initiative if his set orders tell him nothing."

"You wait and you wait, you try to see things through the eyes of the enemy, and when it eventually happens it is all suddenly different. Many people at home believe their sailors fight for Kings and country, to protect their loved ones, and so they do. But when the guns begin to thunder, and the enemy is right there alongside rising above the smoke like the devil's fury, it is John who calls for Bill, one messmate seeking another, as the bonds of sailormen are stronger than symbols beyond their ship."

"We cannot always know the man who leads, just as I am no longer privileged to recognize the face of every sailor and marine who obeys."

"He was ashamed and embarrassed, angry too that such a man could end like this. If peace did eventually come, there would be many more redcoats begging in the streets."

"No wonder the lookout was amazed. There were deozens of them, some moored in pairs, others, possibly gun-brigs or bombs, anchored separately, a veritable armada of small ships [....] and there they were, like a phalanx of Roman soldiers on the march, six lines of small vessels under sail. In the bright glare even the pendants and ensigns looked stiff, like lances."

"Bolitho heard the blare of a trumpet and saw the sun gleam across black-plumed helmets and breast-plates as the horses changed formation and cantered into another wall of dust."

"Always the same picture, the narrow waters of Carrick Roads in Falmouth, the murky hump of Pendennis Castle lying across the starboard bow of the ship flying an admiral's flag: his flag — the knowledge of that had been quite definite, as it so often was in dreams. The squadron had been all around him, ready to weigh, or still shortening their cables. About to leave Falmouth, as he had done so many times."

"‘He doesn't understand. The navy is my life. My only life, now. The war will not last for ever, but until it ends I shall stand in the line-of-battle as I have been entrusted to!’"

"Scum they might be; many would otherwise have been hanged or deported, but firm discipline and fair treatment would soon change that. The hard men who would never break, Adam would take on himself to train. They often proved to be the best sailors, especially those who had never known anything but poverty and oppression."

"Each gun-captain was a king, every breech a small demanding kingdom."

"The French man-of-war was small and agile, and from the deck of the fishing boat looked as big as a frigate. She was carrying so much sail it made Browne feel that their own boat was unmoving ..."

"It was a harsh school, right enough ... but a lot of good had come from it.The petty tyrants and bullies were fewer now, for braggarts had little to sustain them in the face of an enemy broadside."

"You know how sailors love to create mystery where there is none."

"How they must hate us, he thought. The dogged, storm-dashed ships which were always there at the break of every day. Waiting to dash in and seize a prize under the enemy's nose, or scurry to rouse the main fleet ..."

"His career was not a complete success, and yet it was far from a failure. While it lasted it eclipsed the fame of almost all who were then engaged in politics. Many, no doubt, severely censured his methods and the violence of his attacks... And the antipathy was almost as great as the enthusiasm which he excited. Not a few good men thought him absolutely wicked, and beyond the pale of political salvation. But, while he was a figure, he enlisted public interest and public admiration as no one did but Mr. Gladstone: his popularity, indeed, was at one time almost unbounded."

"Lord Randolph Churchill may be best described as the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of modern politics. The secret of his rapid success is very simple—he has always known exactly what time of day it is. As for the public at large, there are, he saw, only two sure ways of bringing down the House. One is to appeal to the higher moral sentiments, the other to use a great many "big, big D’s." His lordship went in for the big D’s, and his platform performances are dictated by a constant desire to meet a demand to "give it ’em hot, Randy.""

"Lord Randolph Churchill, who was perhaps the shrewdest political prophet of his day."

"What you call my "self-renunciation" is merely an effort to deal with an abnormal, and very difficult, state of things. It arises from the peculiarities of Churchill. Beach having absolutely refused to lead, Churchill is the only possible leader in the Commons, as his ability is unquestionable. But he is wholly out of sympathy with the rest of the Cabinet: and being besides of a wayward and headstrong disposition, he is far from mitigating his resistance by the method of it. As his office of Leader of the House gives him a claim to be heard on every question, the machine is moving along with the utmost friction both in home and foreign affairs. My self-renunciation is only an attempt—a vain attempt—to pour oil upon the creaking and groaning machine. Like you, I am penetrated with a sense of the danger which the collapse of our Government would bring about, otherwise I should not have undertaken, or should have quickly abandoned, the task of leading an orchestra in which the first fiddle plays one tune, and everybody else, including myself, wishes to play another."

"Tory Democracy was necessarily a compromise (perilously near a paradox in the eye of a partisan) between widely different forces and ideas: ancient permanent institutions becoming the instruments of far-reaching social reforms: order conjoined with liberty; stability and yet progress; the Tory party and daring legislation! Yet narrow as was the path along which he moved, multitudes began to follow. Illogical and unsymmetrical as the idea might seem—an idea not even novel—it grew vital and true at his touch. At a time when Liberal formulas and Tory inertia seemed alike chill and comfortless, he warmed the heart of England and strangely stirred the imagination of her people."

"As to the projects of R. C. to take my place, they do not trouble me much. He probably entertains them, and he may possibly succeed. The present course of politics is so distasteful to me, and the position of a peer is really so helpless politically, that I should really welcome a state of things which assured me that the duty of continuing a hopeless struggle was no longer incumbent upon me. But I should hesitate to utter any prophecies about him; the qualities for which he is most conspicuous have not usually kept men for any length of time at the head of affairs."

"In these later years Lord Randolph Churchill was drawn increasingly towards a Collectivist view of domestic politics. Almost every speech which he made from 1889 to 1891 gives evidence of the steady development of his opinions. His interest in the problems of the labouring classes grew warmer and keener as time passed... His answer to a deputation of miners who waited in succession on him and Mr. Gladstone to urge the enforcement of an eight hours’ day in the coal trade was accepted by them as far more favourable to their desires than anything that fell from the Liberal leader."