Everyone said to me growing up, "You're like an American. You have to go to America. That's your spiritual home."

There's no reason why you can't deliver a grammar-school curriculum to an all-ability intake.

In Britain, by contrast, we still think that class plays a part in determining a person's life chances, so we're less inclined to celebrate success and less inclined to condemn failure. The upshot is that it's much easier to be a failure in Britain than it is in America.

I was once hired to write a column for 'The Guardian' and then got fired before I'd submitted my first one. That was unusual. Most newspapers wait until I've written at least one piece for them before firing me.

I don't envy young Brits crossing the Atlantic to make their fortunes today.

I expect that in 40 years' time I'll be writing political tomes and working for an organisation like Oxfam.

I was every Londoner's stereotypical idea of a brash, vulgar American. When I got here, it turned out that London was the Wild West, and New York was like London at the height of the Victorian era, in which everyone was far more obsessed with table manners and status-climbing than they are in London. In London, everyone was just crawling over this blizzard of cocaine. Here, if you have more than a glass of wine with your meal, people refer you to Alcoholics Anonymous.