My own experience of growing up as a Roman Catholic in Scotland has led me to fear independence in Scotland. The possibility of Scotland being a kind of Stormont is a real one. I wrote a book recently about Neil Lennon's year of living dangerously and in the course of it I had to revisit some of my own experiences. Of course, most Scottish people are not swivel-eyed, loyalist sectarians but there are a large number of them. A large six-figure number, and if I were living in Scotland as a Roman Catholic I would be worried about that.

I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when the British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas.

A small man intoxicated by being allowed to run around with the big, aggressive, powerful boys after so many years as a corduroy-clad peacenik.

There are those who wrap themselves in flags and blow the tinny trumpet of patriotism as a means of fooling the people.

Stop invading Muslims lands! How can you expect Muslims to love you when you are forcefully occupying their lands and murdering their people?

It can be said, truly said, that the Iraqi resistance is not just defending Iraq. They are defending all the Arabs and they are defending all the people of the world against American hegemony....It's not the Muslims who are sick. It's Bush and Blair and Berlusconi who are sick. It's not the Muslims who need to be cured. It's the imperialist countries that need to be cured.

The invasion of Lebanon by Israel .. is a monstrous injustice. I side with the resistance to that injustice. Hizbollah is leading that resistance. I do not hesitate to say .. that I glorify that resistance. I glorify the Hizbollah national resistance movement, and I glorify the leader of Hizbollah, Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.