Disney World has acquired by now something of the air of a national shrine. American parents who don’t take their children there sense obscurely that they have failed in some fundamental way, like Muslims who never made it to Mecca.

Until now their line has been that the Tories are incapable of doing anything about poverty, and aren’t interested in doing it in the first place. By contrast, Labour says, we are also incapable of doing anything about poverty, but would dearly love to do something. If we knew what.

There are few tribes more loathsome than the American Right, and their vicious use of the shortcomings in the NHS to attack Barack Obama’s attempts at health reform are a useful reminder.

I’m often amazed at the way politicians, who spend hours poring over opinion poll results in a desperate attempt to discover what the public thinks, are certain they know precisely what God’s views are on everything.

The Chinese do make vast quantities of wine for home consumption, but you wouldn’t want to drink it yourself.

I’ve served on five different juries, and many of them were bonkers in their own way.

If you read the ‘Daily Mail,’ you would imagine that the British middle classes lead lives of unremitting misery.

Watching the Commons tribute to Margaret Thatcher was like being suffocated inside a gigantic sticky toffee pudding, but one with nasty bogeys planted inside. There was much of the ‘Margaret Thatcher who was lucky enough to know me,’ especially from her own side of the House.

Remember how Margaret Thatcher came to believe that abroad was more important than at home? Didn’t do her much good.

They’re called Virgin Trains because they don’t go all the way.