It behaves more like a tribe than a democratic institution...responding to custom rather than reason and using its own liturgy and language for the conduct of its domestic affairs.

You don't have to wait until people say they accept everything you say until you are actually prepared to sit down and discuss matters with them.

I think that what most surprises anybody who goes into politics from even a modestly cerebral background is the vulgarity of much of the cut and thrust of politics.

There is a sort of exotic preposterousness about a lot of elections, the way arguments are made even cruder.

Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off.

Undoubtedly, at the moment, the major cause of CO2 emission is what happens in developed countries.

In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including the jerks.