Peter Hitchens

“Freedom of speech is freedom above all for those whose views you dislike most.”

“There is no such thing as a 'right to buy.' Proper conservatives don't believe in invented, taxpayer-subsidised rights, a creation of liberals. They believe in freedom. And the break-up of council estates was one of the most unconservative things that ever happened, making life harder for young families and destroying settled communities.”

“Thanks to centuries of island freedom, when we were able to decide who came in and who didn't, it is far easier to disappear in Britain than in almost any other country in the world.”

“Our pious horror at the intolerant and repressive behaviour of Islamic State is bitterly funny, given that it is really not that different from the policies of our close ally, Saudi Arabia.”

“The worst country I ever lived in, the old U.S.S.R., was crammed with privileges for the political elite. They had their own hospital, their own shops, country houses, and blocks of flats, special lanes on the streets so they could bypass the traffic in their special cars.”

“If you are funny, people will like you. A lot of advertising is based on this simple rule. The Tory MP Boris Johnson has benefited a lot from it.”

“Average male pay is higher than average female pay for a simple reason. Despite decades of enforced equality, women still have babies, and men still don't. So women who wish to spend any substantial time at all with their own offspring will fall behind in their careers, and their earnings will be less.”

“Radical multicultural types will, in the end, destroy the things they claim to like, because they don't understand that liberty and reasonable equality are features of stable, free, conservative societies based on Christian ideas, which guard their borders and are proud of their civilisation.”

“A world without a proper day of rest is like a landscape without hedgerows, trees, or landmarks: a howling, featureless wilderness in which we incessantly seek pleasure because we cannot find happiness.”

“A fierce and principled opposition stops a fat, complacent government from making stupid mistakes.”

“At every future election, there should be a slot, at the top of each ballot paper, in which we can put a cross against 'None of the below.'”

“Freedom of speech, for those who don't accept multiculturalism or the sexual revolution, is increasingly limited, mainly by threats to the jobs of those who speak out of turn.”

“All we have and are is based on the Christian faith, which has shaped law, government, morals, music, landscape, and education here for a thousand years.”

“Our education system teaches the young what to think, not how to think. And if you ever wonder why so many things don't work properly any more, or why you can't get any sense out of so many organisations, this is one of the main reasons.”

“Donald Trump is a symptom, not a disease. The disease is the death of real political conservatism: a cool, intelligent reluctance to believe that all change is good, a love for the established, the particular, and the well-worn.”

“Rigid, state-enforced sex equality is a Marxist policy, pursued to the outer limits in the old East Germany and now being adopted here.”

“I hate cars and wish they had never been invented. I try to use them only when I absolutely have to.”