Football is not, in my view, a sport: it is somewhere between a business racket and a mental illness. I associate it with all the worst aspects of our society - violence, drunkenness, drugs, racism, exploitation, greed and stupidity; and that's just for starters.

This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths.

Football is not, in my view, a sport: it is somewhere between a business racket and a mental illness. I associate it with all the worst aspects of our society - violence, drunkenness, drugs, racism, exploitation, greed and stupidity; and that's just for starters.

The IRA sending a message of sympathy to America is like Jack the Ripper giving us a lesson in the sanctity of human life.

Those Victorians: endlessly fascinating, broad in their learning, heroic in their achievements, in parts completely mad.

Political genius consists in identifying oneself with a principle.

In England, even the poorest of people believe that they have rights; that is very different from what satisfies the poor in other lands.