Often I go to book festivals and they just turn authors into celebrities.'

I don't want to be complacent.

I want politicians to be held to account for their politics and their principles, or lack of them, but I find it irritating that we have a culture where people are more interested in trivial gossip than substantive matters.

The idea of a private life has been eroded in the sphere of politics.

The notion that one's home is one's castle and you can pull up the drawbridge is not one that people in public policy circles believe in.

Sometimes, we just take too much glee in the downfall of people in power.

Public discourse degenerated. There's no longer a place for intelligent debate at universities, where people just work for degrees and careers. My own experience was how my trade union's lively branch debates dwindled to a few people round cups of coffee. There's a climate of people frightened to say what they think for fear of offending someone.

TV and radio debates seem inflamed, with all that shouting, but real disagreement is always avoided; they conceal their lack of content.

I've spent my whole life fighting for leftwing causes, so I can tell you, no one is more surprised than me to be standing as candidate for Nigel Farage's Brexit party.

The argument about the need to regulate the digital space has to be weighed against freedom of expression in our society, whether we are interacting in a virtual world or in the real world where we have the growth of so-called 'safe spaces.'

The first job of the Brexit Party is to make sure Brexit's delivered and if that involves electoral pacts, that might happen.

Maybe the Tory party might, instead of telling the Brexit Party what to do, make an approach to the Brexit Party and say I'll tell you what, we'll stand aside in certain areas. That would be a very positive thing for me, let's work together for a new kind of politics.

Whenever excessive regulation is on the horizon, you can guarantee our kids will be wheeled out as a battering ram against adult opposition.

I have fought for open immigration which is something I disagree with Nigel Farage on.

What I have always thought is that there should be a proper national conversation about what kind of immigration policies we have.

Theresa May, a Remainer, assumed that all of the Brexit voters are racist, thinks we will use this to kick British citizens out of the country; it is despicable.

We should start off with the premise that people that we're disagreeing with are like ourselves. Try and work out why they think what they think.

If you feel you're being condescended to and not taken seriously in the discussion, that can make people feel defensive.

If you lose an argument it doesn't mean you change your mind but you have to accept the decision.

I would never say don't have an argument.

Welsh voices and Welsh communities were heard in 2016 in their tens of thousands, in their droves. They voted to leave the European Union and since then they have had that slapped in their face actually often by Labour MPs who basically said we know better than you.

I can only look at what Labour has done to the NHS here in Wales and it's not a good story. That includes on education as well.

I am standing in solidarity with decent Remain voters who respected the rules and accepted the result and are as appalled by Parliament's undemocratic antics as the most ardent Brexiteer.

I do not condone the use of violence.

Brexit has acted as a catalyst encouraging more people to think and vote outside of traditional party loyalties.

Brexit has changed everything in British politics - it has blown open a cosy, zombie-like closed world of Westminster parliamentary politics. It has broken open the traditional line between left and right, which was already an exhausted tradition.

My political views have never made me insensitive to the pain and suffering caused to the innocent victims of events such as the Warrington bomb.

I'm not Tory but I do happen to think that the Government should be allowed to govern.

One of the great tragedies of Brexit has been that despite the fact there was an unprecedented public vote for change, Brexit was almost hijacked, owned, and controlled by a technocratic establishment.

I confess that when I hear Boris Johnson's slogan let's get Brexit done it sends a chill. Because it's let's get Brexit done so we can focus on the important domestic issues.

To hear the Conservatives issue a command that all Leave voters must vote Tory, this seems insultingly complacent.

The truth is the Tories don't own Brexit. No party owns Brexit and that includes the Brexit Party.

I do not want to give the state and the authorities the right to ban things on the Internet - no ifs.

I actually don't think we should ban Jihadi videos because I don't think that is what causes the issue of Islamist violence. We have to confront these things beyond banning them.

I think that the European Union negotiators have gotten a shock. They were shocked when they realised the Brexit trade negotiations were not just going to be a continuation of those that happened under Theresa May.

I think there's a presumption of a climate emergency which I don't think there is. I think there's a climate problem, I don't think there's an emergency.

I'm very interested in the new industrial revolution, what we do in terms of energy, developing the north, ensuring there are jobs and that kind of vision.

If you want to initiate a broader debate about racism, is it really healthy to create an atmosphere in which it is not only statues that are being toppled but a range of cultural artefacts, TV series, celebrities, columnists and controversial broadcasters?

People conclude that if the famous can be dragged through the virtual public square and unceremoniously dumped, the fate of any random tweeter or the average man or woman on the street can seem even more precarious.

Those who politically theorise the artificial concept of 'whiteness' infer that anyone who has white skin cannot escape their unconscious bias. If you object, you are accused of failing to come to terms with your white privilege.

Many white people sense that they are being blamed for the sins of white slave owners and imperialists merely through some lineage of ethnicity. Activists' constant stress on white privilege can lead to an unhealthy defensive posture of white victimhood.

For me, normal means freedom to live life as we choose, from cramming into packed planes to go on holiday to crowding into pubs for birthday parties.

There were good-faith reasons to resort to extraordinary measures when confronting an unknown global pandemic. Most of us consented to the lockdown, even if reluctantly. However, that consent - freely given as an act of social solidarity - was not intended as a green light to giving up hard-won liberties, or a perpetual suspension of free society.

I have no truck with the faintly conspiratorial argument that international governments are gleeful about a public-health emergency to enact authoritarian measures.

If the widespread attempts to block Brexit gave us a glimpse into how fragile our commitment to democracy had become - reduced to a technocratic in-name-only veneer - reactions to Covid are a stark reminder that freedom cannot be assumed as a social norm that's deeply embedded into our institutions and our psyche.

You don't need to be a fan of wars or militarism to note that heroic action - whether being prepared to be jailed as a conscientious objector or putting your life on the line by joining the resistance - creates a sense of meaning when society faces a huge challenge.

One lesson of the vote for Brexit was that citizens were fed up being treated as bystanders. One of the gains of Leave was the flourishing of a sense of agency and self-determination that it afforded to many.

We already know that the experience of lockdown is a mixed bag. It is increasingly recognised that for many it can be hellish. Enforced leisure - if you are crippled with worry about debts, insecure job prospects, your family's health - is no holiday.

Retreating to indefinite lockdown culture would mean surrendering what makes life worth living, a far more tragic cost than anything inflicted by a virus.

The media are so key in a national emergency, especially when opposition parties in the U.K. are - let us say - largely in disarray, even leaderless.