Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.

I was brought up by a Victorian Grandmother. We were taught to work jolly hard. We were taught to prove yourself; we were taught self reliance; we were taught to live within our income. You were taught that cleanliness is next to Godliness. You were taught self respect. You were taught always to give a hand to your neighbour. You were taught tremendous pride in your country. All of these things are Victorian values. They are also perennial values. You don't hear so much about these things these days, but they were good values and they led to tremendous improvements in the standard of living.

(Not) even the US can impose peace: it has to be genuinely accepted by both parties involved.

Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them.

The Third World is very much like the First World - just poorer: what works for the West will work for the rest as well.

To me consensus seems to be - the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects.

It is recorded how towards the end of the eighteenth century a Muslim visitor to England was taken to see the House of Commons at work. He later wrote of his astonishment at finding the that the British Parliament actually made laws and fixed punishments for their infraction - because unlike Muslims the English had not accepted a divine law revealed from heaven and therefore had to resort to such unsatisfactory expedients. Muslims still understand the expression 'the rule of law' very differently than do most Westerners.