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Class still matters in Britain today.

It's quite an interesting time, the '20s, because the politics of England were changing quite a lot, and the class structure was starting to shift a little.

In the U.K., there is a sort of obsession with class.

I think Britain is a bit class-ridden. People tend to be judged by how rounded their vowels are.

England is strictly class-based. What's surprising is how many films are still made with a load of people in silly frocks running around gardens and talking in middle-class accents.

The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent.

Although I don't have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears.

I've got four lovely children, ten lovely grandchildren, and I left parliament to devote more time to politics, and I think that what is really going on in Britain is a growing sense of alienation. People don't feel anyone listens to them.

Ireland is such a young society. The British were the ruling class up until they left about a hundred years ago, and we've been trying to work out what our class hierarchy is ever since.

At the moment, in Britain we're facing such enormous cutbacks in education programs and music programs and art programs that you feel you are knocking your head against a brick wall.