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.

The best thing we can do with rejection is to make it a learning experience - rejection is a great teacher.

I went to an art school and you learn very quickly there that you're only as good as your next idea, not so much what you've got going on at the moment. And so I embraced that. It sunk in at an early point.

I always wanted to be a musician from when I was kid. It was always a massive dream of mine. School was also really really important to me and having an education was top of my priority. So I really wanted to have a degree before I tried anything in the music industry.

English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street.