In the early stages she had to continue to include them in the cabinet, says Prof Toye, but then gradually she rid herself of them.

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That is, they would have sat in the mainstream doghouse for a few years but then gradually acceptance and support for their bigotry would have moved from the margins to the mainstream.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Mainstreaming anti-Semitism

But he was old by then, and gradually lost the argument.

ECONOMIST: Verghese Kurien

But as they gradually increase to 50%, then 60% and maybe to 70%, retailers have given up hope of actual profits and are just looking to clear out room in the store.

FORBES: Leaner Shelves, Leaner Profits?

If someone fears that the Romanised version of his name has been flagged, he can choose a new (but linguistically correct) transliteration, and then establish that spelling gradually by using it on low-level documents such as a gym membership card or a lease agreement.

ECONOMIST: Computing: What's in a name? | The

The suicide rate then rose gradually through the 1960s and 1970s, but in the 1980s it began to decrease, continuing to decline steadily until 2000. (Anyone recall what happened to the economy in 2000?) From 2000 to 2007, the last year for which the researchers had data, the suicide rate was on the rise.

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It drew me in not immediately but over the course of months and then years, during which I gradually realized that she stood in the back of my mind like a person in a dream, a person whose face you cannot see.

NEWYORKER: The Tiger��s Wife

But then, as I watched my own kids, I marvelled at how they gradually learned how to delay and how that made so many other things possible.

NEWYORKER: Don��t!

In the three elections since then the Cambodian leader has gradually eased up on the hardball tactics, occasionally jailing or exiling critics, but also wooing opponents into the fold with promises of power.

ECONOMIST: One of the last (we hope) Asian strongmen