In Britain I love spending time at the St. James’s, the Jumeirah Carlton Tower on Cadogan Place, and the Mayfair Hotel. We’ve got some spectacular hotels tucked away in London, but because I live there, I don’t get to spend as much time in them as I probably would like to.
When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, ‘I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.’ I wouldn’t have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn’t a clever man.
Britain’s a funny place and there’s a lot of funny people coming out of there and a lot of people are finding mediums to express themselves.
I am not, never have been, and never will be a politician. But I want to tell you the United States has always been proud of having the support of the United Kingdom, of keeping Britain in Europe. We need Britain in Europe.
Britain is one of the world’s most open economies. More dependent on trade than any other major country. Our success depends on our competitiveness and our competitiveness depends on raising our productivity, as our competitors are raising theirs.
We have to see that we’re a part of each other, and we have to take care of each other. The reason why they have universal health care in Canada and Britain, these other places? Because they believe if one suffers, everybody suffers.
Britain has supported theocrats and dictators as long as it served British business interests, whether under Tory or Labour rule.
I know that Britain and the United States and others ship arms in the Middle East, 10 or maybe 100 times more than the Russian does.
It was one of those great miracles of history that they managed to smuggle an Enigma machines out to Britain just before they were invaded by the Nazis.
What is the big political issue for Britain at the moment? Without wishing to sound portentous, it is about whether we can build a social democratic settlement, whether we can lay the political and cultural foundations for the next several years.
Heaven can never countenance the barbarous and unmanly practice of the Britons in America, which savages would blush at, and which, if not discontinued, will soon be retaliated on Britain by a justly enraged people.
Alistair made my goals feel more achievable. I remember him competing for Great Britain when he was 15, and he came back with his GB kit. I thought, ‘Wow, I want a part of that.’ Sportsmen can seem distant, like superheroes. Seeing my brother achieve that made me think I could, too.
For years, Islamists and other extremists have taken advantage of grievances of Muslims in Britain and have successfully identified ways to integrate them under one ‘Islamic’ banner.
Ed Miliband rails against energy companies and says the market isn’t working. But wasn’t he Britain’s first secretary of state for energy and climate change in 2008?
Shooting films in Britain is always difficult, because we’ve never got enough money to make them.
Today, Labour has a disruptive economic narrative – that Britain needs fundamental change in its market structure and culture to compete in the modern world.
Britain proves to be an ideal setting for many a medieval-minded crime novelist, regardless of century.
We are going to transform Britain’s rail system from the worst in the world to the best. If you can do a few things like that, when the body gives out, you can say you’ve lived a good life.
We should be the natural home for younger voters. But today we’re not. Because too often we sound like people who just don’t like contemporary Britain.
If you look back historically, admittedly a long time ago, there were three Afghan wars in which Britain didn’t even come a good second. In more recent years the Russians were there with 120,000 men for ten years.
Tackling deprivation around the world is a moral imperative and firmly in Britain’s national interest.
Rather than standing back and being left behind, we must make the most of the opportunities that a growing China presents to us here in Britain.
Britain rightly sees herself as a global good citizen, but she must reconcile ambition with power, ends with means – shedding utopian idealism in favour of a more rugged internationalism, putting the national interest first, not last.
Like many people in Britain, I have an affectionate respect for the Queen, and am surprised that I should be having such republican thoughts.
In Britain, you never get away from the fact that you’re a foreigner. In the U.S., the view is it doesn’t matter where you come from.
Britain is just a melting pot for every culture. Like a pot for every culture around the world mixed into one. Artists over here understand that more.
Whoever would have guessed that in the land of cheap sausages and mashed potatoes there could be such a change which would actually bring the French from Paris every weekend to invade Britain en masse to eat great food and drink great wine.
Both France and Britain are supportive of India’s bid for a broad-based agreement on trade and investment with the European Union.
Manufacturing doesn’t just mean building cars and metal-bashing; it includes making pharmaceuticals and hi-tech electronics. A crucial part of the process is the research and development that allows better and greener products to come to market. Britain has traditionally had a strong science and engineering base.
I think until Britain acknowledges just how much of a presence black people had here before the Sixties, then there are certain stories that are not going to be inclusive of what I have to offer.
In Britain, the big supermarkets dominate our food chain. British supermarkets are some of the best in the world at controlling, manipulating and delivering cheap food.
I would point out that Japan’s proposal at the Versailles Peace Conference on the principle of racial equality was rejected by delegates such as those from Britain and the United States.
Americans are much more open than people in Britain.
The United States stands with our friends in Britain as they recover from today’s shock of terrorism. These barbaric acts strengthen our resolve and remind us all of the danger of complacency during our continued war on terror.
We have got this Damocles’ sword of Standard and Poor’s hanging over us, with the commitment they have made to review Britain’s credit rating in the summer of 2010 after the general election. Everybody in Britain has a vital interest in ensuring that the triple A credit rating agency is maintained.
I mean, I’m a conservative. I believe that, you know, if you borrow too much, you just build up debts for your children to pay off. You put pressure on interest rates. You put at risk your economy. That’s the case in Britain. We’re not a reserve currency, so we need to get on and deal with this issue.
Thatcherism, as an ideology, addresses the fears, the anxieties, the lost identities, of a people. It invites us to think about politics in images. It is addressed to our collective fantasies, to Britain as an imagined community, to the social imaginary.
In England, there’s no acknowledgement the invention of slavery came from Britain.
I’m absolutely delighted because I’m part of the process that has made Asians very much part of the mainstream fabric of Britain, whereas, when I first started, we were completely on the margin.
I could give you a long list of things I like about Britain, but essentially what it comes down to is that I feel about Britain the same way I feel about my wife. I’m crazy about my wife – we just kind of suit each other. I wouldn’t say that she’s the most fantastic human being that’s ever lived, but she is for me.
I did not want to put myself on the line, as an Australian playing Britain’s greatest comic actor. The fans of Sellers are obsessive, possessive – and aggressive. I did not want to risk their anger – or my own reputation.
I adore Britain! It’s my favourite country; I love their eccentricity. I find Britain so inspiring.
When I first got the call to do ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, it was actually Amanda who was one of the first people to reach out to me and suggest we go out for a coffee and have a conversation. And we did, and it was great.
It can be difficult to be subtle and not cartoony in prosthetics. But when you see characters like Bubbles and Desiree from ‘Little Britain’ on screen, it makes all the hard work worth it. It’s such fun watching those transformations.
Britain is a very small country with a very large press.
We benefit tremendously from the E.U. Britain does very well in getting back E.U. money for the amount it puts in.
The establishment in Britain is certainly against the arts and against education. If something doesn’t make a profit, it’s invalid, and art doesn’t make a profit in that sense.
I’ve got four lovely children, ten lovely grandchildren, and I left parliament to devote more time to politics, and I think that what is really going on in Britain is a growing sense of alienation. People don’t feel anyone listens to them.
I’m totally in love with Jane Austen and have always been in love with Jane Austen. I did my dissertation at university on black people in eighteenth-century Britain – so I’d love to do a Jane Austen-esque film but with black people.
Even in the early Eighties, when I was one of the most successful models in Britain, I didn’t really have a voice. Time after time, when I should have spoken up, I simply walked away.
