Andrew Neil

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

If 'Spectator Business' works, we will continue this brand extension strategy and look at everything from 'Spectator Arts' to 'Spectator Style and Travel' or 'Spectator Connoisseur.'

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.

There's a substantial difference between dumping 100 copies of the 'Telegraph' at a Connex South Central station and giving away copies of the 'Business' with the 'Mail on Sunday.' 'This kind of circulation is valuable and enhances the brand. Leaving them anywhere willy-nilly devalues the brand.

The Business' has been an editorial success, with a core audience that loves it. But commercially it has never been a success as a newspaper. It just gets crowded out on a Sunday.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Journalists always want publishers or editors to leave. They're creative troublemakers - that's why you hire them.