I have a reputation for infamy.

There was such a sense of relief on the left when New Labour came to power that certain orthodoxies could not be challenged. People became desperate to hang on to the ascendancy of left ideas without really questioning what they were about.

If you challenge multiculturalism you are seen to be a racist. But it's a political philosophy that needs to be looked at. If you don't, you're taking it on trust, which is intellectually dishonest.

One thing I got from my parents was that they talked about politics all the time. They weren't educated or academic but they were interesting about and interested in the world.

I could be earning a lot of money as a consultant, or gone higher in education.

I joined the RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party) in the early '80s. I'd be in it still but it was wound up at the end of the nineties.

I still consider myself a liberal in the Enlightenment sense of the word. But I have to admit that being a liberal these days is confusing.

I continue to take inspiration from John Locke, John Stuart Mill and those more recent freedom fighters of the 1960s who challenged conformism and repression.

Free speech is carelessly tossed to one side in order to silence views and people that liberals label as intolerant.