Sir Sidney Low blamed the recent catalogue of war and revolution on out-of-touch diplomats who had tried to hammer the peoples of Europe into artificial unity.

Social niceties are essential for the smooth operation of society, but neither boxing a man’s ears nor calling in the lawyers will bring them back.

Amid the Don Pacifico Affair, William Gladstone told Lord Palmerston that pride in his own country did not excuse bossing others about like a global schoolmaster.

After the devastation of the Great War, calls rose for a new economic and social system, and to put the wisdom of our forebears behind us.

To Napoleon, the way that politicians in Paris had forced metric measurements on the public was a lesson in bad government.

The British Tommy’s fondness for ‘Tipperary’ exasperated some of his countrymen, but ‘Alpha of the Plough’ thought it showed proper English spirit.