Quotes of the Day

I would not rule out Rupert Murdoch once again having control of 'Sky News.'

You know, Rupert Murdoch I've said is like an Italian when it comes to negotiations.

Rupert Murdoch has been around since the dinosaurs. He knows how to get around any independent board - as he did with me, and as he's done with other editors as well.

The Sun' and the 'News of the World' fell in line behind New Labour in the run up to the 1997 election, 'The Times' stayed broadly neutral and 'The Sunday Times' unenthusiastically Tory. After the election, 'The Times' quickly fell in line as the New Labour house journal.

Don't forget that Rupert Murdoch has always regarded the Op Ed pages of 'The Wall Street Journal' - as he's said to me - as a cup of strong caffeine that gets you going in the morning and tells you what to think.

That's the only time when newspapers have some influence, when they are pushing the British public in a direction they are already minded to go.

You don't really appreciate how much you are going to miss your parents. I keep thinking of all the times I should have made the effort to go up and see them but didn't.

I never set out to get married and the way things have worked out I never have.

People know more about my views than they do about most BBC presenters because I had a life before becoming a BBC presenter.

Well, one person whose company I enjoy is Charlie Whelan. He and I get on really well together.

I even remember at the age of five watching a documentary on the Ku Klux Klan that was quite terrifying because it was men in white sheets who looked like ghosts to me.

If 'Spectator Business' works, we will continue this brand extension strategy and look at everything from 'Spectator Arts' to 'Spectator Style and Travel' or 'Spectator Connoisseur.'

The Sunday paper is an odd British cultural tradition.

Americans have this patrician attitude that they have a God-given right to produce these boring newspapers and not be challenged to do it. 'The New York Times' really thinks it's the BBC.

Many U.S. Sunday papers are monopolies, and their contents can be an extension of the daily.

When one English person speaks, another one immediately classifies him. No class system in the world is so audible, which is also why it is so pernicious and enduring.

If the traditional British elite had made a great success of running my country, as successful, say, as the elites of Germany, Japan and America, then maybe it would be a club worth joining.

Class and the snobbery it provokes still matter far too much in Britain, but we are a far more mobile society than we used to be.

The old Establishment has always preserved its position by not being too exclusive - it has been wily enough to absorb the up-and-coming and convert them to their attitudes and mannerisms.

I spend a lot of time in New York.

You have to live and breathe Scotland if you're 'Scotsman' editor.

The Scotsman' is a cheerleader for devolution.

Look, I don't want to edit the 'Scotsman.' I have too many other things going on. I have four newspapers to run and two dot com companies going gangbusters.

There are two ways you can buy an education in this country. You can pay the fees. Or you can cheat and buy a house in an area where there's a good school.

The Margaret Thatchers of this country made it through - like I did - because of the grammar school system, which gave the opportunity of a lifetime to working-class kids. It put them on a level playing field with the privately educated kids, and opened up the top universities to them.

I'm not arguing for a return to the grammar school system, but there must be a way of identifying bright kids from ordinary backgrounds and giving them a world-class education.

It is actually getting much harder for someone from an ordinary background to break through the ranks. In the period from 1964 to 1997, every single Prime Minister - from Harold Wilson to John Major - was the product of a state school.

Newspapers are what matter in this country, not magazines.

There's a substantial difference between dumping 100 copies of the 'Telegraph' at a Connex South Central station and giving away copies of the 'Business' with the 'Mail on Sunday.' 'This kind of circulation is valuable and enhances the brand. Leaving them anywhere willy-nilly devalues the brand.

I am not an insider - definitely not... but I don't think you could call me an outsider.

I'm proud to have played a major part in destroying Fleet Street, a corrupt cartel of unions and proprietors that operated against the public interest.

No, you see, unlike some interviewers, I love politics... overall I am not anti-politicians at all. I recognise they are more important than me.

Journalists always want publishers or editors to leave. They're creative troublemakers - that's why you hire them.

Ever since I left the 'Sunday Times' there has been a group of scribes waiting for me to fall on my face, and having a go at my commercial record, looking to pick holes in it.

Well, we all make mistakes, and I've made some; getting involved in a price-cutting campaign in Scotland when the biggest slump in advertising history was just around the corner was a mistake.

I made it clear when the Barclays took over the 'Telegraph' that I wanted no editorial position there. There is no way I could take a high-level editorial position at the papers. I have my work for the BBC, and that would be compromised if I did.

My mentor is Alastair Burnet, the greatest news anchor Britain has had.

I am a better journalist than I am a businessman.

The only exception to the demise/struggles of the European centre-left is Macron, in French presidential and parliamentary elections 2017.

If I had a pound for every former editor who hadn't cut the mustard advising me what to do, I'd be a very rich man.