The Prime Minister's Ironing Board and Other State Secrets

The Prime Minister's Ironing Board and Other State Secrets
Author: Adam Macqueen
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2013-10-03
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 140551955X

Stored in Whitehall's archives are everything from blood-chilling warnings of imminent nuclear attack to comical details of daily life in the corridors of power. Concerned notes from ministers on the subject of the Heir to the Throne's potential brainwashing by Welsh terrorists are shelved alongside worries about housemaids 'on the wobble' at Chequers. Detailed and surprising plans for royal funerals sit beside reports on suspected spies in the showbiz world and bawdy poetry about the monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar. And Mary Whitehouse's complaints about the sex education syllabus nestle next to thank-you notes from prisoner 13260/62, also known as Nelson Mandela. Adam Macqueen, author of the highly acclaimed bestseller Private Eye: The First 50 Years, has searched high and low to present us with some of the most unlikely revelations since the Official secrets act was inaugurated one hundred years ago. Not only about Mrs Thatcher's ironing board, but Ted Heath's car, Harold Macmillan's bedroom carpet, Imelda Marcos and her son Bong Bong's trip to Buckingham Palace and President Eisenhower's particular problem with Winston Churchill's trousers.

Beneath the Streets

Beneath the Streets
Author: Adam Macqueen
Publisher: Eye Books (US&CA)
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2020-06-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1785631748

When Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe hired thugs to kill his ex-lover, they botched it. What if they had succeeded? It is February 1976, and the naked corpse of a shockingly underage rent boy is fished out of a pond on Hampstead Heath. Since the police don't seem to care, 20-year-old Tommy Wildeblood—himself a former 'Dilly boy' prostitute—finds himself investigating. Dodging murderous Soho hoodlums and the agents of a more sinister power, Tommy uncovers another, even more shocking crime: the Liberal leader and likely next Home Secretary, Jeremy Thorpe, has had his former male lover executed on Exmoor and got clean away with it. Now the trail of guilt seems to lead higher still, and a ruthless Establishment will stop at nothing to cover its tracks. In a gripping thriller whose cast of real-life characters includes Prime Minister Harold Wilson, his senior adviser Lady Falkender, gay Labour peer Tom Driberg and the investigative journalist Paul Foot, Adam Macqueen plays "what if" with Seventies UK political history—with a sting in the tail that reminds us that the truth can be just as chilling as fiction.

Women’s Legal Landmarks in the Interwar Years

Women’s Legal Landmarks in the Interwar Years
Author: Rosemary Auchmuty
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2024-08-22
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1509969748

Women's Legal Landmarks in the Interwar Years shines new light on 33 legal landmarks, many forgotten today, that affected women in England and Wales between 1918 and 1939. It considers the work of feminist activists to bring about legal change which benefited – or aimed to benefit – women. Areas explored include property, inheritance, adoption, marriage, access to health care, criminal law, employment opportunities, pay, pensions and political representation. It also examines campaigns by key women's organisations, and assesses the impact of early women lawyers and politicians. While some of the landmarks effected change during this period, others provided the foundation for measures in later decades. Together the landmarks demonstrate that far from being a relatively quiet period of British feminism, the interwar period played a key role in ongoing fights for recognition, representation and justice.

Pinkoes and Traitors

Pinkoes and Traitors
Author: Jean Seaton
Publisher: Profile Books
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2015-02-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1847659160

This compelling account of a turbulent period in the history of the BBC opens at a time of national decline under the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, and ends during Margaret Thatcher's iconoclastic Conservative premiership. The intervening years saw mass unemployment, trade union strikes and war in Northern Ireland and the Falklands - as well as legendary BBC programmes such as Live Aid, Fawlty Towers and Dad's Army, The Singing Detective and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and David Attenborough's Life on Earth. Comprehensively revised and expanded for this new edition, Jean Seaton's perceptive study presents an absorbing analysis of an institution that both reflects Britain and has helped to define it.

Rick Mercer Final Report

Rick Mercer Final Report
Author: Rick Mercer
Publisher: Anchor Canada
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2019-10-22
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0385692498

Canada's pre-eminent satirical commentator brings down the curtain on his hugely successful show in this instant #1 national bestseller. Rick Mercer startled the nation when in 2017 he announced that the 15th season of Canada’s most-watched and beloved comedy show the Rick Mercer Report would be the last. As this book reminds us, he quit while he was way, way ahead. Final Report includes blisteringly good rants from the final five seasons and some of the very best rants from the show’s early years. And in three brilliant new essays that include a love letter to Parliament Buildings, how Doug Ford became Ontario premier (hint: it had nothing to do with talent) and how he managed not to freak out in the year after the RMR wrapped, Rick, a recipient of a 2019 Governor General’s Performing Arts Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award, reveals himself as a comic writer and entertainer at the very top of his game.

The Blunders of Our Governments

The Blunders of Our Governments
Author: Anthony King
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 668
Release: 2014-09-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1780746180

With unrivalled political savvy and a keen sense of irony, distinguished political scientists Anthony King and Ivor Crewe open our eyes to the worst government horror stories and explain why the British political system is quite so prone to appalling mistakes.

Telling Secrets

Telling Secrets
Author: Frederick Buechner
Publisher: Harper San Francisco
Total Pages: 136
Release: 1991
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Unabashedly Christian....a meditation on the connection between knowing and sharing secrets and discovering the reality of a loving and merciful God. --Chicago Tribune Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

The Mayaguez Crisis, Mission Command, and Civil-military Relations

The Mayaguez Crisis, Mission Command, and Civil-military Relations
Author: Christopher Jon Lamb
Publisher: Office of Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2018
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780160945038

Preface -- Abbreviations -- Key figures in the Mayaguez Crisis -- Introduction -- Day one: Monday, May 12 -- Day two: Tuesday, May 13 -- Day three: Wednesday, May 14 -- Day four: Thursday, May 15 -- Critical crisis decisions -- Explaining decisions, behaviors and outcomes -- Refining the explanation: rationality, bureaucracy and beliefs -- Findings, issues, prescriptions -- Conclusion.