Growing up as a kid my father was British and a soccer player. His idol was a guy that passed the ball a lot, Stanley Matthews. Our family thought if you could be unselfish your teammates would always like you.
I personally felt that his ad hominen attacks on British architects were not the sort of thing a Prince of Wales should be doing because, apart from anything else, they put various people out of business.
Before the Civil War, the Southern states were selling a lot of cotton to England and didn't seem to mind British occupation. By and large, the Revolutionary War wasn't at all great for business.
The monarchy is foremost a business, and it's important to them that the British public continue to finance the excessive luxurious lifestyles of the now quite enormous, wasteful and useless 'royal' family. I find it very sad.
On one level, I would prefer never to hear the words 'James Bond' again, but on another level, it is part of my blood and my life. And it's the only movie in the world that offers a British actor the chance of international recognition.
If you look back at British history, women being allowed to play sport in schools meant they had to change their clothing. They couldn't be running around in their long skirts and corsets, because you can't.
The basic policy of the British Government was that since the majority of people in Northern Ireland wished to remain in the United Kingdom, that was that. We asked what would happen if the majority wanted something else, if the majority wanted to se...
Most people in this country are very fair-minded; they understand we're in the middle of a very difficult journey of repairing, rescuing, restoring our British economy, and they want us, and they want particularly Liberal Democrats in government, to ...
I think the British people are very, very attached to the idea that the health service is free at the point of use. But there is no reason why every doctor, nurse and teacher in this country has to be employed by the state.
Looking out over the port of Dover, with the endless steam of boats coming in and out, every British citizen is reminded that belonging here has never been about blood or genes. It's simply about being at home on this discrete island and being aware ...
When I was a child in the 1940s and early 1950s, my parents and grandparents spoke of Britain as home, and New Zealand had this strong sense of identity and coherence as being part of the commonwealth and a the identity of its people as being British...
I could have closed down bits of British Home Stores to make more money but it's not my style. I want to make my money as a retailer, not by putting people out of work.
If pressed, I would say I feel British. It's where I grew up and where I choose to live, the culture that I love, but I feel perfectly at home in America, I don't feel like a tourist or anything.
There are many reasons I feel at home in the U.K., but if I were asked to pinpoint the moment I knew I'd arrived, it might well be when I realised the British shared my love of fritters.
I get nostalgic for British negativity. There is an inherent hope and positive drive to New Yorkers. When you go back to Britain, everybody is just running everything down. It's like whatever the opposite of a hug is.
What I hope is in five years' time, I can go to the British people in the election and say: Lots of you doubted that coalition politics worked, but it has worked.
I really wouldn't want to live in America. I found New York claustrophobic and dirty. I missed England when I was there, simple things like smells and the British sense of humor.
I mean, yeah, I'm sure that Python and the other things have paved the way for a greater understanding of the British sense of humor, but I don't think it's all that different than the American sense of humor.
Teaching the history of the British Empire links in with that of the world: for better and for worse, the Empire made us what we are, forming our national identity. A country that does not understand its own history is unlikely to respect that of oth...
I believe Britishness is defined not on ethnic and exclusive grounds but through shared values; our history of tolerance, openness and internationalism; and our commitment to democracy and liberty, to civic duty and the public space.
If you look back at history, the various Maharajas of the Indian empire actually helped support a whole British industry. The royalty in those days ordered exotic cars in huge numbers.
