If one generation is expected to carry an excessive burden on behalf of another, it will seek by every means to avoid it. It will either demand that past promises are broken, or it will not work, or it will not pay taxes, or the most talented people will leave. Socialist governments which have tried to tax 'till the pips squeak' have ample experience of that.

The European single currency is bound to fail, economically, politically and indeed socially, though the timing, occasion and full consequences are all necessarily still unclear.

I had the patriotic conviction that, given great leadership of the sort I heard from Winston Churchill in the radio broadcasts to which we listened, there was almost nothing that the British people could not do.

The fact that seasoned politicians can say such ridiculous things - and get away with it - illustrates the degree to which the new dogma... has swept through the left-of-centre governing classes.

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work.

If your only opportunity is to be equal then it is not opportunity.

I've got a woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.