Politics now is rather like going into Starbucks for a coffee.

My first public impression was my French teacher, Derek Swift.

Politics now is rather like going into Starbucks for a coffee.

I'm much more used to the TV shows, which are demanding to write and perform but very fulfilling.

That business aspect of the media, that Charlotte Street world, the advertising and programme executives, it leaves me absolutely cold. I'm supposed to be the director of a television company, but I've only ever seen that company as a vehicle for making the kind of programmes we wanted to make, getting our ideas on the screen.

It is a weird thing, because most people tend to get more conservative as they get older, but I find myself going the opposite way. I am sure that by the end I will be selling Marxist pamphlets on the Holloway Road.

British politics is more nuanced. Part of the problem with New Labour is that they are a moving target.