Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The Tea Party isn't out to be a third force in American politics. Instead, it has infiltrated the Republicans and remoulded them in its own image.
No one can be in any doubt that Britain is becoming more like Europe, though few in an increasingly economically illiterate media seem to realise it.
I'm proud to have played a major part in destroying Fleet Street, a corrupt cartel of unions and proprietors that operated against the public interest.
Like all populist movements, the Tea Party will eventually peter out. It won't succeed in returning America to the minimalist state of the 19th century.
As class barriers tumbled and Britain became a more meritocratic society, young, well-educated Scots were best placed to exploit the new social mobility.
There are two ways you can buy an education in this country. You can pay the fees. Or you can cheat and buy a house in an area where there's a good school.
Look, I don't want to edit the 'Scotsman.' I have too many other things going on. I have four newspapers to run and two dot com companies going gangbusters.
The English, in their ignorance, still have the romantic notion that Scottish schools are superior to English ones; they are at least a generation out of date.
Whereas people increasingly get their news from the Internet, magazines have a different atmospheric to them. A magazine is something you sit down and relax with.
I don't even read 'the Sun' and it's my job to read everything that's politically important. I think that's a symbol of the declining power of the mainstream media.
Rupert Murdoch has been around since the dinosaurs. He knows how to get around any independent board - as he did with me, and as he's done with other editors as well.
When one English person speaks, another one immediately classifies him. No class system in the world is so audible, which is also why it is so pernicious and enduring.
Ever since I left the 'Sunday Times' there has been a group of scribes waiting for me to fall on my face, and having a go at my commercial record, looking to pick holes in it.
I'm not arguing for a return to the grammar school system, but there must be a way of identifying bright kids from ordinary backgrounds and giving them a world-class education.
If you're on the pull, a hen party gaggle, a gang of rowdy chavs or a group of braying snotty bottys, then Baros is not for you - which means it's just grand for the rest of us.
The Business' has been an editorial success, with a core audience that loves it. But commercially it has never been a success as a newspaper. It just gets crowded out on a Sunday.
If 'Spectator Business' works, we will continue this brand extension strategy and look at everything from 'Spectator Arts' to 'Spectator Style and Travel' or 'Spectator Connoisseur.'
Americans have this patrician attitude that they have a God-given right to produce these boring newspapers and not be challenged to do it. 'The New York Times' really thinks it's the BBC.
The old Establishment has always preserved its position by not being too exclusive - it has been wily enough to absorb the up-and-coming and convert them to their attitudes and mannerisms.
I recently passed through Mumbai airport. I cannot claim it was a pleasant experience. But if I had a choice between Mumbai airport and Euston on a Sunday afternoon, I'd take Mumbai any day.
If the traditional British elite had made a great success of running my country, as successful, say, as the elites of Germany, Japan and America, then maybe it would be a club worth joining.
Well, we all make mistakes, and I've made some; getting involved in a price-cutting campaign in Scotland when the biggest slump in advertising history was just around the corner was a mistake.
When I was at Paisley Grammar we were equipped to compete with the private-school kids - and encouraged to do so. The sky was the limit, provided we had ability, ambition and a capacity for hard work.
If a journalist comes to you with a great story, one of the first questions you ask is how did you get it. How you got it is relevant to judging its accuracy and preparing yourself for any legal challenge.
Don't forget that Rupert Murdoch has always regarded the Op Ed pages of 'The Wall Street Journal' - as he's said to me - as a cup of strong caffeine that gets you going in the morning and tells you what to think.
During the Blair-Brown decade social concerns - what kind of society we have become - have gradually replaced economic worries. People fear that we have become an increasingly fragmented, boorish, more violent society.
I don't think the standard of our politicians is very high. And when you get good ones, world-class ones, like a Blair or a Brown or a Thatcher, then they do stand out - they are head and shoulders above everybody else.
The English are a tolerant bunch and, outside elements of the London elite, never much minded the rise of the Scottish Raj: after all, we were British, well-educated, reasonably cultivated and spoke with clear, classless accents.
It is actually getting much harder for someone from an ordinary background to break through the ranks. In the period from 1964 to 1997, every single Prime Minister - from Harold Wilson to John Major - was the product of a state school.
Those who claim to be in the know say Baros is nothing out of the ordinary as Maldivian islands go - that Reethi Ra is far more fashionable, Soneva Fushi more eco-compliant. Truth to tell, they all look pretty much alike from a distance.
I made it clear when the Barclays took over the 'Telegraph' that I wanted no editorial position there. There is no way I could take a high-level editorial position at the papers. I have my work for the BBC, and that would be compromised if I did.
The Sun' and the 'News of the World' fell in line behind New Labour in the run up to the 1997 election, 'The Times' stayed broadly neutral and 'The Sunday Times' unenthusiastically Tory. After the election, 'The Times' quickly fell in line as the New Labour house journal.
I travelled through the night in a bus with the Kentucky Tea Party en route to a massive rally in Washington. For the most part I found them decent, self-reliant, regular Americans who feared the American Dream was now over, not just for them but for their children and grandchildren.
The Margaret Thatchers of this country made it through - like I did - because of the grammar school system, which gave the opportunity of a lifetime to working-class kids. It put them on a level playing field with the privately educated kids, and opened up the top universities to them.
When I went up to Glasgow University in 1967, student life was dominated by 13-hour debates on Fridays, when one of the student political clubs would form the 'government' for the day and attempt to push through a piece of legislation, which the other clubs either supported or opposed.
Most children of the underclass are born out of wedlock; relationships are fleeting and unstable (which ensures that what is born into the underclass stays in the underclass). This is a world in which there are almost no worthwhile male role models, which is a disaster when boys turn to youths.
There's a substantial difference between dumping 100 copies of the 'Telegraph' at a Connex South Central station and giving away copies of the 'Business' with the 'Mail on Sunday.' 'This kind of circulation is valuable and enhances the brand. Leaving them anywhere willy-nilly devalues the brand.