Auberon Waugh

In their quest for power and self-importance, to compensate for whatever feelings of social inadequacy or sexual insecurity, they (Politicians)are prepared to perpetrate something which is hard to distinguish from mass murder if they think they can get away with it...

Christmas has become a public affirmation of the power and benignity of the state, to which we all make obeisance in the sybolism of the breath test ceremony.

My own attitude to the innumerable injustices of life has always been a philosophical one, especially when they have tended to operate in my favour.

Unless people are prepared to declare themselves your enemies you have to hunt around for them.

Rather to my surprise, I found myself genuinely indignant at the suggestion that murder was to be reintroduced as a means of political advancement for the first time since the Tudors, and even more indignant that the legal and political establishments in all their forms - which included, at that stage, the police - were going to cover up the whole episode. In the event, it turned out that my anxieties were unfounded, as Thorpe was totally innocent of all charges brought against him.