Hong Kong's people will get what they want, despite China's objections. Freedom invariably wins in the end.

It is curious that atheists have proved to be so intolerant of those who have a faith.

I don't think that capitalism should be unbridled, if by "unbridled" you mean unregulated.

It'd make a wonderful change to have the leader of a pluralist democracy who acted on that, who told people just how tough things are going to be, just what's going to have to be done - and, maybe, ran all the risks on the side of honesty, rather than spinning stories and trying to win the headlines every day.

But the ability to articulate what you are doing, to be clear about it, and to stick to it is, I think, the essence of political leadership.

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.

It is almost always wrong that the time isn't ripe to decide something. That is always said of difficult problems.