If you are a rich person straining every sinew to keep every last pound in your pocket, there comes a point when you realize you are not just escaping the clutches of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You are passing a greater burden on to people poorer than yourself, and depriving even poorer people of your support.

I remember being in China and realising how irrelevant not even Britain is, but also Europe. We're just another remote country that hardly impinges on some places at all.

I am going to have to stick to the script. If I muck around with the words it will defeat the object.

My favourite plant is the foxglove. I think they are a perfect balance between being a garden plant and a wild plant, as at home in woodland as they are in a city.

If you are a rich person straining every sinew to keep every last pound in your pocket, there comes a point when you realize you are not just escaping the clutches of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You are passing a greater burden on to people poorer than yourself, and depriving even poorer people of your support.

On the environmental front there's concern about global warming and high levels of carbon dioxide, and trees take in CO2 and store carbon.

I've always liked trees. And then, growing up, I took an interest in ecology, hedges being destroyed, the landscape being turned into prairies.