If global warming meant temperatures rose by one or two degrees, France would become a desert, which would be no bad thing. The Scots would grow wine and make buffalo mozzarella.

I'm paid about 20 times more than the average Ryanair employee and I think the gap should be wider. I probably work 50 times harder. I think I'm the most underpaid and underappreciated airline boss in Europe.

The French have never produced a great philosopher. Great wine maybe, but no great philosophers.

When you look at the number of stupid people who have succeeded in business, you clearly don't have to be very bright. Business is all about getting your sales up and your costs down, the bit in the middle is profit.

The unions need to be taken on. British Airways is massively over-staffed and has got to get its costs down. . . . The problem for [chief executive] Willie Walsh is that the board of BA has no spine, no balls and no vision.

It reminds me of two drunks leaning on each other.

We need more people to go into business and fewer wasting our lives becoming bureaucrats and civil servants.