Continuing our theme of great liberals here is a story about the G.O.M. I saw in Simon Hoggart’s Saturday column:

“St Peter’s [in Bournemouth] is where Gladstone took his last public communion, in 1898. Three weeks later it was clear that he was near to death, so he took a train for his home at Hawarden, near Chester. At the station a man cried: “God bless you sir!” and Gladstone slowly turned to reply, “God bless you all, this place and the land we love.” They were the last words he spoke in public, and he didn’t even need a spin doctor to write them.”