The truth is a mayor can actually do very little to alter the course of a huge city run by the free market that is home to banking – the engine room of capitalism. A. A. Gill Read Quote
The one thing politicians will always vote for is more politics, so in 2000 they invented the post of mayor of London without ever really thinking what it was a mayor would do. A. A. Gill Read Quote
No British TV company could ever make a series like ‘The West Wing’ about British politics. It would beggar credibility. No one could write it with a straight face, or perform it without giggling. A. A. Gill Read Quote
There’s no pleasing the British, or winning their favor. They simply hate politicians. All politicians. Hatred goes with politicians like mint sauce with lamb. It’s as old as Parliaments. A. A. Gill Read Quote
Margaret Thatcher was as viscerally hated at home as she was warmly respected abroad. A. A. Gill Read Quote
Other people’s traditions look charming and decorative and exotic. They’re nice places to visit on holiday, but you wouldn’t want to live with one. A. A. Gill Read Quote
Gordon Brown is a character from a tragic opera, twisted by ambition and a Presbyterian sense of fateful destiny. He has waited 13 years, mostly in Tony Blair’s shadow, for this poisoned chalice and has a pessimist’s luck. A. A. Gill Read Quote
Have you ever wondered why the rich and privileged care about, or even bother with, the gift bag? Because they don’t need this stuff. If they wanted it, they could afford to buy it, without blinking. But they love the gift bag, beyond reason. A. A. Gill Read Quote
