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.

The 'Robben Island Bible' has arrived at the British Museum. It's a garish thing, its cover plastered with pink and gold Hindu images, designed to hide its contents. Within is the finest collection of words generated by human intelligence: the complete works of William Shakespeare.

Most British people are keen to remain in a European free trade zone; and most EU states are keen to keep us there, because we buy from them more than we sell to them to the tune of £40 million per day.

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

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.

I am not the Conservative Party's health care spokesman. I'm fond of Andrew Lansley, and I strongly support David Cameron as party leader.

You cannot carry on forever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit.