The royal family's existence is a constant reminder of the hollowness of John Major's rhetoric, and idiotic statements by its leading members a constant boost to the republican cause. They're fine opening hospitals. It's when they open their mouths they get into trouble.

All of this is happening because there has still been no reckoning post the financial crisis. So governments have fallen, one bloke has been to prison, the banks have gone pretty well back to status quo, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. And it's fuelling anger. And somehow [Donald] Trump, who represents the worst aspects of capitalism, has persuaded people he can deal with that.

I never met David Kelly, but I knew from what he told other people that this was not his view. The BBC were saying that Tony Blair was making up lies so that he could send young men and women to war, maybe to die. I think that if the BBC had done their jobs professionally, they'd have realised that you couldn't justify what they said. And nothing has emerged since to justify that report.

There is something in me that makes me see things through.

There are many reasons for the decline in royal esteem. One is that so many of the royals are thick.

The media are obsessed with spin doctors and with portraying them as a bad thing, yet seem addicted to our medicine.

He [Tony Blair] was always ambivalent about the [Rupert] Murdoch papers. But he gave other papers the chance to believe it was just about 'The Independent.' And that was wrong.