Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women - 91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data - is practically absurd and morally indefensible.

While we can remember the past, we cannot write the future. Only our children, the future of our community, can do that.

Britain, relative to the U.S., is a highly secular society. Philanthropy alone cannot fill the gap left by government cutbacks. And the sources of altruism go deep into our evolutionary past.

If we are to negotiate the coming years safely, we may need a new kind of leadership. To put it more precisely, we need the rediscovery of an ancient kind of leadership that has rarely been given the prominence it deserves. I mean the leader as teacher.

It's very important that the government is close to the business community and that we understand their concerns. But at some point, the government needs to be a government.

I think that political marriages are subject to more strain than most precisely because of the nature of politics.

And in a democracy, when we say we're mad at what's going on, what we need to be saying is we're mad at ourselves.

Government workers often get a bad rap, but it's rare for them to receive much appreciation when government works.