When the Americans are behind you, they're behind you 100%, and this gives you real confidence as an architect. They expect you to lead a building project - to make the kind of big and costly decisions that, in Britain, have been handed over to project managers and cost-cutters.

Between 1945 and 1965, the number of colonial people ruled by the British monarch plunged from 700 million to five million. In 1956, just three years after the coronation, the Suez canal crisis and Anthony Eden's humiliation ended all notions that Britain was a world superpower.

I have been given a list of 35 white farmers in Mashonaland West alone. We say no to whites owning our land, and they should go... They can own companies and apartments... but not the soil. It is ours, and that message should ring loud and clear in Britain and the United States.

There are too many countries where the values we take for granted in our civil servants simply do not exist. Seeing these values in action, applied with dedication by hardworking individuals, makes me proud to lead a service that is making life better for millions across Britain.

We do not always appreciate the role the Queen has played in one of the most significant changes in the past 60 years: the transformation of Britain into a multi-ethnic, multi-faith society. No one does interfaith better than the Royal family, and it starts with the Queen herself.

I am fortunate to stay at lots of lovely hotels when I'm on tour, but my favourite hotel group in Britain is Malmaison. I recently stayed at the Malmaison in Manchester, which was pretty amazing. It had a fabulous bar and restaurants, as well as fantastic rooms with mood lighting.

I've always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany's taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too.

She felt Britain should not be so dependent on coal. She was in favour of building up nuclear energy to break the dependence on coal, and the main opposition to nuclear came from the environment movement. Mrs. Thatcher thought she could trap them with the carbon emissions argument.

We must look to an open, tolerant, inclusive England, which embraces the values of a Britain that still leads the world in terms of an open democracy, as well as an understanding of the needs for responsibilities and obligations to run alongside the affirmation of individual rights.

I certainly feel I'm carrying the flag for Britain. I feel an honour in that but, at the same time, knowing my roots are in Africa, I'd like that to help motivate people from there. Even coming from a third world country, it is possible to get to the top of wherever they want to be.

I welcome the role that people of faith play in building Britain's future - and the Catholic communion in particular is to be congratulated for so often being the conscience of our country, for helping 'the least of these' even when bearing witness to the truth is hard or unpopular.

Alistair made my goals feel more achievable. I remember him competing for Great Britain when he was 15, and he came back with his GB kit. I thought, 'Wow, I want a part of that.' Sportsmen can seem distant, like superheroes. Seeing my brother achieve that made me think I could, too.

Israel is too attached to America, too influenced by America. It should be connected to Europe. America is based on mythology - the free man, the individual, the open frontier. Europe is more conscious of history. Take Britain and Shakespeare. You shape your identity through history.

When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, 'I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.' I wouldn't have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn't a clever man.

I thought my story, my experiences as a 2-year-old 'evacuee' from London at the outset of the war, could be important. What happened to me as a child was very light compared to what happened to many children, but... in Britain, there are so many people who just don't know our history.

Ireland, in breadth, and for wholesomeness and serenity of climate, far surpasses Britain; for the snow scarcely ever lies there above three days: no man makes hay in the summer for winter's provision, or builds stables for his beasts of burden... the island abounds in milk and honey.

From the coffee bars of Camden to the gin joints of Norfolk - across Britain, a revolution is brewing. And no, it's not John McDonnell's bitter socialist hooch. It's a generation growing up with an entirely different view of the world - free thinking, optimistic and hungry for success.

Although Britain has, since 1653, had nothing approaching a single, codified constitution, it did for a very long time possess a broad cult of constitutional writing. The Petition of Right of 1628, like the Bill of Rights of 1689, was a cherished text. So, most of all, was Magna Carta.

We've got to get back on track to working with them. Because if I and my colleagues are going to continue to attract inward investment from overseas - you know particularly from the big Asian countries - they see Britain as a gateway to Europe. They don't want any doubts cast upon that.

The wrongful arrest of tens of thousands of British Muslims after the September 11 attacks can be explained by the very poor intelligence the police had, and, just possibly, excused by the fact that a terrorist action in Britain linked to British Muslims would have been hugely damaging.

So long as the Oregon question is left open, Mexico will calculate the chances of a rupture between us and Great Britain, in the event of which she would be prepared to make common cause against us. But when an end is put to any such hope, she will speedily settle her difference with us.

In the past, rulers led their troops into battle and, even in peacetime, called themselves fathers of their people. And modern politics retains abundant masculine rituals. Prime minister's question time in Britain, for instance, is a stylised duel and tournament redolent of testosterone.

The food system is not a free market. In this country, we impose reasonably high standards of animal welfare - but we haven't applied the same standards to food we import, so all we're really doing is exporting cruelty from Britain elsewhere, and at the same time undermining our farmers.

When ministers in this government talk about investing in education and skills, about making the planning system work; about employment law reform and delivering transport and power generation and broadband communication infrastructure, we are talking about raising Britain's productivity.

Anya Hindmarch is indeed a handbag designer; she has the requisite fabulous life, tasteful home, and loving husband. She is also beautiful and self-deprecating, and has five children aged 5 to 20 and a philanthropic bent which spans causes from cancer care to Britain's Conservative Party.

Fundamental systemic crises are often associated with the decline of the dominant imperial power and its increasing inability to sustain the system over which it had previously presided. The profound instability of the interwar period owed much to Britain's inability to maintain its role.

No leader did more for his country than Winston Churchill. Brave, magnanimous, traditional, he was like a king-general from Britain's heroic past. His gigantic qualities set him apart from ordinary humanity; there seemed no danger he feared, no effort too great for his limitless energies.

In many areas, the E.U. regulates to help the worst sort of giant corporate looters defending their position against entrepreneurs. Post-Brexit Britain will be outside this jurisdiction and able to make faster and better decisions about regulating technology like genomics, AI and robotics.

One area in which we can be certain mass immigration has an effect is housing. More than one third of all new housing demand in Britain is caused by immigration. And there is evidence that without the demand caused by mass immigration, house prices could be 10% lower over a 20-year period.

When people go to vote still in Britain, they will look at their local representatives, but I don't think there is a sort of cult of personality politics. Obviously, they want to know who the leader is for each party, but I think there is a lot of identification with their local candidates.

In France, they call the people who come to the theatre 'les spectateurs'; in Britain and Ireland, they are the audience, the people who listen. This does not mean the French are not interested in language. On the contrary. It actually says more about the undeveloped visual sense over here.

I want to send a very strong signal to people who do think about making this journey - we will do everything we can to make sure it is not a success in the sense that I don't want people to think that if they leave a safe country like France that they can get to Britain and just get to stay.

In today's Britain, the weakest among us are often assumed to be minority communities. In fact, the weakest are those minorities-within-minorities for whom the legal right to exit from their communities' constraints amounts to nothing before the enforcement of cultural and religious shaming.

Britain is a textbook case of how growing inequality leads to economic crisis. The years before the crash were marked by a sharp rise in remortgaging and the growth of 0 percent balance transfer credit cards. By 2008 the UK had the highest ratio of household debt to GDP of any major economy.

Indeed, China may never acquire the geo-political influence and reach that Great Britain enjoyed in the 19th century and the United States of America did in the 20th, even though it may have already surpassed the geo-economic clout the two major powers enjoyed in the heyday of their empires.

A lot of the 'leave' campaign was centered around a thinly veiled xenophobia, just 'control our own borders.' It's not a good look. I don't think it represents Britain; I don't think it represents the U.K. all too well. It breaks my heart for my generation in Britain who are going to suffer.

There were only 170 neurologists in Britain then and, whether spoken or unspoken, there was this insidious feeling. How can Bannister, a mere athlete, probably spoilt by all the publicity and fame, dare aspire to neurology? But I'd done a lot of research, and my academic record was very good.

Britain kept its position as the dominant world power well into the 20th century despite steady decline. By the end of World War II, dominance had shifted decisively into the hands of the upstart across the sea, the United States, by far the most powerful and wealthy society in world history.

The decision to trigger Article 50 is in the hands of the next prime minister. If that is me, I will make a judgement as to when is right for Britain, and I won't be hurried or hassled by anyone into pressing that button or triggering that article until I believe it is right for this country.

If we go to the 1940s, Nazi Germany - look, we saw it in Britain. Neville Chamberlain told the British people: Accept the Nazis. Yes, they will dominate the continent of Europe, but that is not our problem. Let's appease them. Why? Because it can't be done. We cannot possibly stand against them.

Two of the first plays I saw after I arrived in Britain were 'King Lear' in Liverpool, and 'Antony and Cleopatra' at Stratford. One was produced with hardly a backdrop and the other with gigantic scene changes. I was impressed by what connected the two: the words and their life beyond the stage.

When Napoleon abdicated in April 1814, Britain expected that America would soon lose heart and surrender, too. From then on, London's chief aims were to bring a swift conclusion to the war and capture as much territory as possible in order to gain the best advantage in the inevitable peace talks.

Britain has been responsible for the undermining of democracy, turning a blind eye to abuses by its allies, using extraordinary rendition to get around the rule of law, passing over the denial of individual liberties to dissidents, and the evasion of the dismal situation for religious minorities.

Germany's Angela Merkel exudes an atmosphere of elderly exhaustion and pooped-out pessimism. Britain's David Cameron, though by nature exuberant, feels he has to look and sound glum. And France's leader, Francois Hollande, seems determined to drive every successful businessman out of the country.

I mean, Britain is a country of successful Muslim businesspeople, teachers and educators, journalists. So, we have to say very strongly that the two million plus Muslims in Britain, the vast bulk of them make a huge contribution to our society, and they actually make it the vibrant society it is.

There was, of course, a global financial crisis. But our Labour predecessors left Britain exceptionally vulnerable and damaged: more personal debt than any other major economy; a dangerously inflated property bubble; and a bloated banking sector behaving as masters, not the servants of the people.

Well, you know... I grew up in postwar Britain, when you were lucky to get anything to eat. People in America have absolutely no conception of how austere England was after the war. While you were all sort of eating butter and eggs, we were eating rabbit. That's what there was in the butcher shop.

James Goldsmith is important because he used the power of the markets to break up the cosy patrician elite that ran Britain and its industries in the 1950s and '60s. In the process, Goldsmith helped transfer power in this country away from politics and towards the markets and the financial sector.

My job is to support businesses, that means promoting British commerce in the big emerging markets that have been neglected in the past. It means keeping Britain open to inward investors, trade and skilled workers. It means cutting red tape which is suffocating growing companies which create jobs.

Because of the long, long history of British shipping, immigration, trade, empire, missionaries, you can have a better shot at telling a worldwide story in the British Museum's collection than any other. Britain has been more connected with the rest of the world than any other country, for longer.

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