There are huge challenges ahead for this country but also huge opportunities. We can make this country stronger and fairer.

It is literally the case that learning languages makes you smarter. The neural networks in the brain strengthen as a result of language learning.

Turkey will "inevitably" join the EU in our lifetime unless we vote to leave.

With the single exception of Park Lane, every north-south route in London slows traffic to the pace of a wounded gnat with pleurisy struggling with a squaddie's backpack.

When I talk to teachers they tell me the things they'd most like from any government are a reduction in bureaucracy, support to help ensure good discipline and a reformed Ofsted.

I notice that the number of cosmetic-surgery operations has risen by 34 per cent in the past year. Once we subtract Jordan, Jodie Marsh and Michael Jackson from those figures, we can see that demand overall may have stabilised.

Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children.