Most of the really successful civilisations survived because they were protected from invasion by mountains, sea, deserts, or a combination of these things. Ask the Russians or the Poles what it's like to live without the shield of the sea.

Britain is a desirable place to live mainly because it is an island, which most people can't get to.

What we need and have not got at Westminster are real experience and wisdom, possessed by people who do not view politics as a career.

All serious elite institutions, from the great London clubs to the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, have always made sure that most people can't get into them. That's the point.

If it's for everyone, it's not exclusive.

The giant fraud that is Britain's education system strides ever onwards, messing up many more lives than it improves.

Nowhere in the Beatitudes did Jesus say, 'Blessed are the queue-jumpers,' trying to gain an advantage at the expense of others. This is what the people at Calais are.

I'm always a bit suspicious of the sort of person who argues by saying 'What would Jesus have said?' They usually mean that they are quite sure Jesus would have agreed with them.

A serious dose of unemployment and a spate of bank failures can make the unelectable electable quite quickly.

If you are foolish enough to defend your own home against burglary, expect to be arrested, fingerprinted, DNA-swabbed, and probably charged.

Freedom of speech, for those who don't accept multiculturalism or the sexual revolution, is increasingly limited, mainly by threats to the jobs of those who speak out of turn.

Instead of trying to bring freedom to the Arab world, couldn't we just concentrate on trying to fend off the European Union and defending our own porous borders?

Average male pay is higher than average female pay for a simple reason. Despite decades of enforced equality, women still have babies, and men still don't. So women who wish to spend any substantial time at all with their own offspring will fall behind in their careers, and their earnings will be less.

The Left have always preferred the state to the family.

Work, especially if you're lucky in what you do, is one of the great pleasures of life, but - like all pleasures - it can become selfish.

I still don't understand why we need a gigantic airport sprawled across South East England. What does it gain us, compared with the misery of noise, pollution and congestion it causes in our cramped country? Would it really be so bad if we had to take a train to Paris or Amsterdam to fly to the U.S.A.?

When I lived in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., I was rather proud that my landlord was almost the only African-American in my unofficially segregated neighbourhood (the other one was the adopted child of our admirable next-door neighbours).

Without doubt, the Queen's personal acceptance of her role as a loyal E.U. servant was one of the great symbolic moments of our history. A bit like Magna Carta, but backwards.

The safest period of my lifetime was the Cold War, when Europe was more sharply divided than ever.

As far as our rulers in Brussels are concerned, Her Majesty can stand for the European Parliament and vote in the elections for it. She doesn't, but she could.

I'm surprised that more people don't emulate Rachel Dolezal and pretend to be black or members of some other minority. Our gullible society rushes to reward such status, often with jobs and money.

Thanks to centuries of island freedom, when we were able to decide who came in and who didn't, it is far easier to disappear in Britain than in almost any other country in the world.

The world's poor have discovered that the E.U. (that's the country we live in, no point pretending there's anywhere called Britain any more) has absolutely no clue how to stop determined immigrants.

Actually, I never wanted an E.U. referendum, and I think those who called for it will one day wish they hadn't.