Top 40 Rory Bremner Quotes

I love the 6 Nations rugby. I feel very Scottish then. I feel very Scottish now, sitting in the middle of Chelsea. But that’s part of our heritage – being part of Britain, part of Europe. I love being European.

If the oil runs out, we’ll be reduced to fracking Alex Salmond.

I can’t look at John Prescott without thinking of Les Dawson, and Robin Cook is a caricature of himself.

I have late onset ADHD. I take on too much and end up spinning plates, but it’s entertaining, and it helps you make quick connections if you’re a comedian, if you have a brain that can dance around too much.

Location is everything, I’d rather camp in the Lake District or Scotland than sit in a five-star hotel in Frankfurt.

Like millions of Scots, I’ve agonised over whether to go for independence or remain with the Union.

I think I probably tend to make life hard for myself by taking on too many things. I call it plate spinning.

When I think back to my childhood, it’s with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment. I was always forgetting things. My mum called me scatty because I could never sit still. But there was no sense I was suffering from a medical condition as such.

If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and none dare criticize it.

I had an Edinburgh, middle-class childhood and a public school education.

I’ve never felt entirely comfortable in high society. I’m more comfortable talking to the bar staff than the super-rich. I don’t really get what makes them tick.

When you consider what Tony Blair was saying about liberty, human rights and that sort of thing, it would be terribly revolutionary to sell the speeches he and Jack Straw made in 1994.

I remember driving home one evening while they were reviewing the papers on the radio. One of the articles was about me separating from my wife. It’s a weird thing to listen to a news report about the break-up of your marriage.

Now I’m instantly nervous about the demands of doing a weekly column.

I remember when Tony Blair came into office, and there was a sense I was thinking, ‘Well, what on Earth am I going to do now?’ until I realized that’s exactly what he was thinking.

So to recap: we may or may not be going to war with Iraq because Saddam may or may not have weapons of mass destruction, which he may or may not use, or pass to other terrorists groups with whom he may or may not have links.

Most Scots might be able to identify six vegetables – but only two MSPs. There are parts of Scotland where you rarely get more than 40% turnout at the polls. There’s a big disconnect there, and I think comedians bridge that gap.

It’s no wonder the Tory Party opposed identity cards, since so many of them struggle to find an identity at all.

When I first met Tony Blair in 1996, he was open and idealistic, keen to bring a breath of fresh air to government. But something happened – was it just the arrogance of power? – that narrowed Labour’s vision from purposeful reform and investment, to peevish and petulant pragmatism.

I don’t think my life would be significantly poorer if I don’t impersonate Nick Clegg. Life is short enough without sitting up night after night listening to tapes of him.

When I did ‘Bremner, Bird and Fortune’ I think it was accepted that comedians can contest the arguments just as well as journalists.

In truth, I barely knew my father at all. He was 53 when I was born, and when I was ten he contracted cancer. Eight years later, in 1979, he died.

I’m supposed to be the director of a television company, but I’ve only ever seen that company as a vehicle for making the kind of programmes we wanted to make, getting our ideas on the screen.

My first public impression was my French teacher, Derek Swift.

I love anywhere new and different. That’s the fun of travel. I’ve always loved driving through Spain, France and Italy – sometimes in an Alfa Spider.

I’m much more used to the TV shows, which are demanding to write and perform but very fulfilling.

Scotland needs comedy more than ever. With the independence debate, finally after 300 years, reaching room temperature.

In a more intellectually rigorous age, I wouldn’t be talked about as a satirist at all. I would just be a topical comedian.

I’ve no idea what they make of me. People usually don’t recognise themselves in an impression.

I think if there is a God, it’s very important that he has a sense of humour – otherwise, you are in for a very miserable afterlife.

People may say that what I do is very clever, but it’s not really at all. It’s not Swift.

Politics now is rather like going into Starbucks for a coffee.

I am proud of Edinburgh’s status as a financial centre, but where is it on the index of global financial centres? Sixty-fourth. Below Hamilton, Casablanca and Mauritius. London, by contrast, is second only to New York. That’s a link worth keeping.

We are rather in the position that used to exist at the BBC, where you feel that you can pick up the phone to people who are experts in their field and they will be very favourably disposed to you and share their knowledge.

It’s a new world that’s very, very difficult to make sense of. But we have a new hope. We have a new man. America has now elected its first openly black President.

Politics in Scotland is far too important to be taken seriously.

I wish my father had lived longer. He died when I was 18.

When I was growing up, there were just the three channels, so as a nation we all sat down to the same meal at the end of the day. Now there’s been this explosion.

Anyone who wants to promote a car or a football tournament turns to opera. There’s a much greater public connection than the image of plush corporate boxes would suggest.

I’d done an Edinburgh show before, in 1981, called ‘The Importance of Being Varnished’ – I was in the pun trade at the time.