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.

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

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

The next Euro-elections will be a step towards a United States of Europe

New fathers, political prisoners, traumatised presidential aides, resolute schoolboys, MEPs addressing unfriendly chambers - we all find that Shakespeare has magically anticipated our precise circumstances. How he was possible, I still don't understand; but there isn't a day I'm not grateful that he speaks to me in my own language.

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.