‘This is a cautionary tale about a deception so delicious yet so serious that it causes us to reconsider the impact of the public intellectual on our culture’

‘Entertaining the reader is now the main goal of criticism’

‘England is perceived by my Continental friends as being a country that is all about belonging or not belonging’

‘The tone in the parks and pubs was that of disappointment. One man was ready to admit – through clenched teeth – that he wished the Brits would take over again’