Check Wiki and see all sorts of bad facts when it comes to Alexander's loyalty, e.g. his father got a plush job working for the European Commission (1973) after doing post-doctoral research at the London School of Economics. The LSE during that time was about as far left as Moscow. I think you will find the man is an upper class socialist

Oh and another point. Balliol is the most leftwing of all the Oxford colleges. It's where Heath went.

Mr Johnson is going to be a liability for you. He's a showman, and if you look very carefully you will see that he is having everyone on. Look at his face and hands during a debate, e.g. those ones in front of the party, and try freeze-framing them, and you'll see it is all choreographed.

So he believes the way to do things is not by reason, but by manipulation. In my experience of life there are two types: those who persuade by reason and those who persuade by trickery. The former are the ones who are clever. I'll give you an example if you like. Here is a speech by Xi Jinping https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys6skqxQKMk . In the speech you will see he uses reason to persuade. He's a technician as well, who understands economics. The plans are clearly well thought out, and he has a past track record of performance. Growth has been about 7% under his leadership. Now lets compare to this man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Eu8E21_efk

And now for something absolutely awful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaxMXmae-Yo

A voodoo doll of Theresa May is just downright evil, and shows the man up for who he really is. There's worse as well, but I'd rather not post it.

The other contender made £14m from the British Council (see Wikipedia). That hardly looks good. Raab would have probably been the best choice, but the error here is in the party's MPs who do the voting. Things do not bode well on that front either.

Of course I don't want a Marxist from the 1970s to take over the country, but I have to say the show continues to be less than impressive. It's the classic company lament, "Can't get the staff".

Brexit can happen without lifting a finger. You just have to waste a load of time doing nothing. What many voters worry about is not lazy politicians, but over-active ones, given the laws are made for the government and not the people's benefit. How many laws are enough, by the way?

Yes but Lady T was talking about walking away, and the EU needed the money and the influence we brought. Now they know we are going to do that anyway.

In negotiations I felt May was too chummy with people like Merkel. You know what Thatcher would have made of her, being an ex-communist and all of that. It looked bad. Politicians couldn't see it but the people could. It's a bad case of what they call group-think.

Have you seen the way the Brexit party appeals to the voters? It reminds me of the Generation Game. You had an audience full of dumb people who were there for a giggle, and they loved the format. The game was all one of presentation and telling witty jokes. The stage set was glamorous and you got big drum rolls and all of that stuff.

This is the new Farage party, and Johnson is one of those clowns, so he has natural voter appeal. Jacob Rees-Mogg is the only one who could get the Conservatives out of this hole in my view. Put him in a studio with Farage and make sure the debate is rational and intellectual and Farage would be seen for what he is, a showman. He's doing little more than repeating his lines. But - big problem - JRM does not want to stand. Maybe he knows something we don't, like it would be political suicide to try. However he has the answers. He's a traditionalist, and we need to get back to some rigour in politics. Voting for clowns would end up with being run by dictators. They deny debate. Farage put the phone down on one caller on LBC the other day!

She cut a rotten deal and that didn't help, but a good deal was pretty impossible to achieve. Thatcher got the rebate because she threatened to leave the EU and that worked. May had nothing really to threaten them with.

The problem is with the majority of MPs in all parties. They really don't want to leave, and no deal is horrifying them because they have all been horrified by the propaganda. They are lightweights without guts. I believe it is because the majority are too close to the state. If you run your own business then taking risk is what you do every day. You are that type who takes risks and more often than not you win, hence you make profits.

People in state jobs and from large corporations are rarely risk-takers. It's a systemic problem. The right believe the best solution is less government, because every government is compromise. We have to learn to let things float a bit more. We will get good deals from some nations and bad form others and we adjust to the environment we find ourselves in, e.g. if the EU deals us high tariffs our trade will divert to non-EU. It will find its own level eventually.

You don't get my point. Lets be specific because the example was saying the look of the shape and its aerodynamic performance complimented one another rather than trading off against one another. It looked like it could slip through the air because it could. Take a look at the new Mercs and often they have very box-shaped front ends, and it makes them look mean, like some monster. They are as ugly as sin, but many like sin, so we are back to what I agree with Scruton . He uses Duchamp to illustrate the point at the other extreme. He could have used Henry Moore just as well. My view is though - don't chuck the baby out with the bathwater. Some of the modernist architects did some great stuff. Google images o Frank Lloyd Wright and see some innovative designs.

Quite simply it is purging talent. They don't recognise talent because they don't understand them.

Here's the central proposition though. You have so much in the way of resources and you have so and so requirements. With a talented designer those resources can be put to their most efficient use and you will get more value for your money.

The genius of the E-type Jag was that it was not expensive. Anyone could save up their pennies and buy one if they wanted. Think of that - the most beautiful car in the world and anyone can have one. That's the thing where quite frankly it has never been beaten. It's worth more now that it cost new, even accounting for inflation. Performance also matched the looks.

Scruton in his film make a divide between functionality and aesthetic beauty, where in reality they can work together.

There are few people in this country who I can think of as better informed than Scruton on the subject of aesthetics. Brian Sewell was someone who I felt the same way about, but he's dead now. Scruton is a refreshing individual and you can be certain his criticism is just, and of an academic standard of critique rather than simply personal opinion. You have to know what has gone before to make any sense of it, and he has done the work.

I'm absolutely sick to death of these second-rate journalists who are so dumb that they don't know how dumb they really are, as in they don't know how much they do not know. If you are going to take Scruton on then you'll have to know what you are talking about. The thing is though that people like those cheap press reporters know they would fall down badly if they ever tried to take him on with his own arguments pertaining to the matter of aesthetics. It is generally considered one of the most challenging subjects of a traditional philosophy course.

OK there are a few historical things that I'm not quite in agreement with him about to do with early 20th century architecture where he talks about 'Form follows Function'. It was not as sinister as he makes out and was a reaction to the overly decorative kitsch that came before ( Art Nouveau circa 1900s), but at least I could vocalise my concerns and if he were listening he could bash it out. My view is he was trying to be polemical here and should have really admitted that there is intrinsic beauty to this functional simplicity; the forms in nature are good examples (all entirely functional). Modern architecture did win some!

The trouble though with reporters like this one is we have here is they are intellectual cowards. They will not take people on regarding their arguments, but on some petty personal nonsense, like the standard issue "it's offended someone". Change the record please.

Oops, I almost forgot to add: the E-type Jag was described by Enzo Ferrari as the most beautiful car in the world. What a lot of people do not know though, is it was designed with mathematical equations to optimise aerodynamic performance. The most functional design was also the most beautiful!