What many of us object to is the politicians who, for whatever reason, forget that societies cannot easily absorb huge numbers of new citizens. I resent the suggestion that this perfectly reasonable view is motivated by racial hatred or personal spite.

The self-righteous supporters of mass immigration think the rest of us are stupid and evil.

The Channel is an international waterway through which the Russians are quite free to pass - and over which we have no exclusive right.

Gleeful, unembarrassed ruthlessness, once rightly kept in check, has become normal among us, and 'Game Of Thrones' is a success because this change is now more or less complete.

When I rather guiltily read the books on which the TV series 'Game Of Thrones' is based, I was struck by one thing. The whole point of this saga is that ruthlessness pays, that evil generally wins, that justice is non-existent, and utter cynicism the only wisdom. It is the Middle Ages without the saving grace of Christianity.

Successful state schools work because charismatic heads or teachers are terrific bluffers, giving the impression that they are to be feared while knowing in their hearts that they have no real power.

People's fates in life are decided largely by their schools.

You know you are old when what you still think of as recent films are remade.

I don't think the British or American governments really want to fight the Islamic State. They just want to look as if they are doing so.

Our pious horror at the intolerant and repressive behaviour of Islamic State is bitterly funny, given that it is really not that different from the policies of our close ally, Saudi Arabia.

If you want a day free of work, you must expect others to have the same privilege.

As I am actually partly Cornish, I am frequently tempted to start some sort of Cornish liberation front in the Home Counties, where our language rights are badly neglected.

There is no such thing as a 'right to buy.' Proper conservatives don't believe in invented, taxpayer-subsidised rights, a creation of liberals. They believe in freedom. And the break-up of council estates was one of the most unconservative things that ever happened, making life harder for young families and destroying settled communities.

I fear crazy cyclists just as much as I fear inconsiderate drivers. They are like cultists, dressed up like huge insects in dehumanising uniforms, so sure they are saving the planet that they care little for its inhabitants.

Terrorists are overjoyed when we shut down our freedoms and turn ourselves into a police state and when we retaliate, swatting the Middle East with useless bombs or rounding up the wrong suspects and locking them up without charge.

The most terrifying thing I ever saw in a cinema, thanks to the carefully built-up drama, was in the ancient black-and-white film 'The Innocents,' based on Henry James's 'The Turn Of The Screw.' My skin actually crawled with horror.

I've tried many times to set out the case against the wicked fantasy of 'ADHD,' which usually earns me nothing but ignorant rage in return.

The public, unlike our governing elite, are not obsessed by race and sex. They are rightly interested only in the contents of the person's character.

Anyone who seriously wants to keep Scotland in the U.K. must seek to stop the rise of the SNP, not to fuel and encourage it.

A world without a proper day of rest is like a landscape without hedgerows, trees, or landmarks: a howling, featureless wilderness in which we incessantly seek pleasure because we cannot find happiness.

Rigid, state-enforced sex equality is a Marxist policy, pursued to the outer limits in the old East Germany and now being adopted here.

I think we shall have ceased to be a racially divided society only when we stop making a fuss about colour.

If we won't fight injustice wherever we see it, then we are not safe from suffering injustice ourselves.

During the 1980s, many people mistook Thatcherism and Reaganism - actually a wild form of liberalism - for conservatism.