There’s another : why might not that bee the Scull of a Lawyer ? where be his Quiddits now ? his Quillets ? his Caſes ? his Tenures, and his Tricks ? why doe’s he ſuffer this rude knaue now to knocke him about the Sconce with a dirty Shouell, and will not tell him of his Action of Battery ? hum.

[…] we were already preparing ourselves for a more striking engagement, when we were most unwelcomely interrupted by the presence of three watchmen.

Rather than accept this, declinists often explained things that did not happen, with explanations that did not work, based on bad history. Thus declinists insist that British R&D has always been low, the City always over-mighty, the country always in the grip of empire, the state under the imaginative control of classicists and historians rather than technocrats, that industry never stood a chance.

Her maiden speech in the House of Commons on June 3 2010 outlined that her immediate priorities would be to receive assurances from the newly installed coalition government on the future of several major capital investment programmes - ….