MixedThe Spectator (UK)... monumental but inevitably selective ... It is certainly a useful summary, with much illuminating detail to carry the story forward ... Heffer is equally good on the suffragettes and provides details of their brutal treatment. But considering the wealth of more significant detail available, do we really need ten pages on the shallow and selfish views and habits of H.G. Wells, and another eight on the tedious scandal of Lord Arthur Somerset? ... The whole drama is well described here, but no new details are added to the many previous accounts. Heffer takes his book’s title from that of a lecture by A.J. Balfour — a man far better equipped for philosophy than for the role of prime minister, and who never bothered to read the newspapers — but is not wholly appropriate. And since few people will read this book from cover to cover, it would have been helpful to have published it in two volumes instead of the present monster, which weighs in at over three and a half pounds.
