My instinct is to assume that we consumers are an inconsistent bunch. We like competition if it delivers low prices, but grumble if it delivers the bad news that prices need to go up.

For me, the main principle for broadcasters has to be that if people stand to benefit from an interview, they should be prepared to face some downside as well.

Once we are fed, heated, housed and healthy, our extra consumption inevitably has an element of luxury about it. And once luxury enters the scene, the practicalities are in trouble, as women who wear expensive stiletto heels can testify.

It is no wonder that bank capital is regulated. When borrowing and lending is profitable, it is tempting for banks to scale up their operations and to borrow and lend too much in relation to their capital, in effect reducing the effectiveness of the potential capital cushion.

We Brits print banknotes out in Debden in Essex, and have contracted it out to the private sector. Here in the U.S. it is a government operation right in the heart of Washington next door to the Holocaust Museum.

It doesn't annoy me but I think of myself as a presenter who is gay, rather than a gay presenter. It's a subtle distinction, but that's how I view it.

Most people hugely underestimate the amount of 'empty space' we have in our country. Fly over the U.K., and you see that human settlement does not fill up the U.K. at all. It accounts for something of the order of 15 per cent of the landmass.