Top 93 Quotes & Sayings by Andrew Neil - Page 2

This is the only country in the world where you can be criticised for trying too hard. That's a put-down in London.

When I was at Paisley Grammar we were equipped to compete with the private-school kids - and encouraged to do so. The sky was the limit, provided we had ability, ambition and a capacity for hard work.

I don't say for a moment that the far right is no longer a problem. We have seen the neo-Nazi nutters in Charlottesville in America.

Britain is now living with the consequences of allowing an underclass to take root and fester.

No one can be in any doubt that Britain is becoming more like Europe, though few in an increasingly economically illiterate media seem to realise it.

As one of the grammar-school generation, I grew up as part of a postwar meritocracy that steadily infiltrated the citadels of power.

There's even less to do in Umea at Christmas than there is in Stockholm.

I've got a house that's only 45 minutes from Monte Carlo.

The sucking sound of capital being pulled out of Europe and into East Asia is almost deafening.

I do not regret working with Rupert Murdoch. But there is a nasty undertone to a lot of what he does which does not exist with the Barclays.

With each step away from communist constructivism to Hayekian capitalism, China has been richly rewarded.

Muslims are not our enemy.

It's probably the journalist in me, but I'm naturally suspicious about consensus and always feel an impulse to confront it.

Now, I bow to nobody when it comes to estimating the influence of 'This Week.'

Those who claim to be in the know say Baros is nothing out of the ordinary as Maldivian islands go - that Reethi Ra is far more fashionable, Soneva Fushi more eco-compliant. Truth to tell, they all look pretty much alike from a distance.

When I was growing up the obvious antisemites were the knuckle-draggers in the National Front.

Not all Republicans in the class of 2010 owe their seats to the Tea Party. But many do.

The Tea Party isn't out to be a third force in American politics. Instead, it has infiltrated the Republicans and remoulded them in its own image.

I get nervous if the bath is too deep.

Britain's great postwar meritocratic experiment was broad-based, but it was in politics that the change was most dramatic.

I travelled through the night in a bus with the Kentucky Tea Party en route to a massive rally in Washington. For the most part I found them decent, self-reliant, regular Americans who feared the American Dream was now over, not just for them but for their children and grandchildren.

I don't think the standard of our politicians is very high. And when you get good ones, world-class ones, like a Blair or a Brown or a Thatcher, then they do stand out - they are head and shoulders above everybody else.

Donald Trump's grip on the Republican parties stronger than ever post the Mueller report.

Most children of the underclass are born out of wedlock; relationships are fleeting and unstable (which ensures that what is born into the underclass stays in the underclass). This is a world in which there are almost no worthwhile male role models, which is a disaster when boys turn to youths.

If you're on the pull, a hen party gaggle, a gang of rowdy chavs or a group of braying snotty bottys, then Baros is not for you - which means it's just grand for the rest of us.

Like all populist movements, the Tea Party will eventually peter out. It won't succeed in returning America to the minimalist state of the 19th century.

The English are a tolerant bunch and, outside elements of the London elite, never much minded the rise of the Scottish Raj: after all, we were British, well-educated, reasonably cultivated and spoke with clear, classless accents.

With sad, depressing predictability, the children of today's underclass become tomorrow's criminals and dropouts.

During the Blair-Brown decade social concerns - what kind of society we have become - have gradually replaced economic worries. People fear that we have become an increasingly fragmented, boorish, more violent society.

On the far left, just as there is on the far right there is a dislike of Israel, not just a dislike, a hatred of Israel.

Memo to self: never again try to travel by train in Britain on a Sunday.

I haven't got a family. I live to work.

As class barriers tumbled and Britain became a more meritocratic society, young, well-educated Scots were best placed to exploit the new social mobility.