If you vote for candidates who think it's the role of the state to provide health care, don't complain when your hospitals are as badly run as everything else run by the state.

Political reporters no longer get to decide what's news. The days when a minister gave briefings to a dozen lobby correspondents, and thereby dictated the next day's headlines, are over. Now, a thousand bloggers decide for themselves what is interesting. If enough of them are tickled then, bingo, you're news.

The most dangerous diminutions of freedom come from those who are convinced of their moral rectitude.

Europe tends to favor stability over democracy, America democracy over stability.

You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.

The 'EU in a Nutshell' is a miscellany of facts and anecdotes about the system which rules us. It's a book you can delve into in pursuit of a particular fact, or crack open for entertainment at virtually any page.

If you vote for candidates who think it's the role of the state to provide health care, don't complain when your hospitals are as badly run as everything else run by the state.