Sam Leith Sam Leith

A nation of meddlers

David Pryce-Jones protests too much about a motley collection of British idealists who became infatuated by foreign causes, says Sam Leith

issue 11 June 2011

If you thought that bust of Lenin you had on your desk as a teenager was the ultimate in radical chic, think on. Infatuated with the French Revolution, Lord Stanhope proclaimed his solidarity at a banquet at White’s Club. Announcing that he was thenceforth to be known as Citizen Stanhope, he ordered the coronets to be removed from the iron gates of his estate, Chevening.

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