Top 44 Andrew Neil Quotes

Many U.S. Sunday papers are monopolies, and their contents can be an extension of the daily.

The Sunday paper is an odd British cultural tradition.

The English, in their ignorance, still have the romantic notion that Scottish schools are superior to English ones; they are at least a generation out of date.

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.

Newspapers are what matter in this country, not magazines.

That’s the only time when newspapers have some influence, when they are pushing the British public in a direction they are already minded to go.

If the traditional British elite had made a great success of running my country, as successful, say, as the elites of Germany, Japan and America, then maybe it would be a club worth joining.

I’m not arguing for a return to the grammar school system, but there must be a way of identifying bright kids from ordinary backgrounds and giving them a world-class education.

When one English person speaks, another one immediately classifies him. No class system in the world is so audible, which is also why it is so pernicious and enduring.

I read more bloggers now than mainstream columnists, because they’ve got more interesting things to say.

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.

Well, we all make mistakes, and I’ve made some; getting involved in a price-cutting campaign in Scotland when the biggest slump in advertising history was just around the corner was a mistake.

In the highly unlikely event that the ‘Telegraph‘ was to be sold again, then ‘The Spectator‘ doesn’t go with it.

Muslims are not our enemy.

When you have variety, you have freedom.

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

No, you see, unlike some interviewers, I love politics… overall I am not anti-politicians at all. I recognise they are more important than me.

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

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

Look, I don’t want to edit the ‘Scotsman.’ I have too many other things going on. I have four newspapers to run and two dot com companies going gangbusters.

My favourite sport‘s cricket and one of the key things in cricket is to know when to declare.

Ever since I left the ‘Sunday Times’ there has been a group of scribes waiting for me to fall on my face, and having a go at my commercial record, looking to pick holes in it.

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

If I had a pound for every former editor who hadn’t cut the mustard advising me what to do, I’d be a very rich man.

I would not rule out Rupert Murdoch once again having control of ‘Sky News.’

I don’t even read ‘the Sun’ and it’s my job to read everything that’s politically important. I think that’s a symbol of the declining power of the mainstream media.

If a journalist comes to you with a great story, one of the first questions you ask is how did you get it. How you got it is relevant to judging its accuracy and preparing yourself for any legal challenge.

With growing economic prowess comes, of course, military power.

When I went up to Glasgow University in 1967, student life was dominated by 13-hour debates on Fridays, when one of the student political clubs would form the ‘government‘ for the day and attempt to push through a piece of legislation, which the other clubs either supported or opposed.

Class and the snobbery it provokes still matter far too much in Britain, but we are a far more mobile society than we used to be.

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.

WMR is wholly devoted to acquiring and exploiting rights. We’re not a production company, and we’re not a broadcaster.

Well, one person whose company I enjoy is Charlie Whelan. He and I get on really well together.

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.

Don’t forget that Rupert Murdoch has always regarded the Op Ed pages of ‘The Wall Street Journal’ – as he’s said to me – as a cup of strong caffeine that gets you going in the morning and tells you what to think.

You don’t really appreciate how much you are going to miss your parents. I keep thinking of all the times I should have made the effort to go up and see them but didn’t.

I’m a bit of a loner.

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.

Rupert Murdoch has been around since the dinosaurs. He knows how to get around any independent board – as he did with me, and as he’s done with other editors as well.

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.

Every house has to have rules – even ‘Animal House.’

I get nervous if the bath is too deep.

The Spectator’ has to be managed and people have to report. We all have bosses in this world and that’s true of ‘The Spectator’ too.

The only exception to the demise/struggles of the European centre-left is Macron, in French presidential and parliamentary elections 2017.