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I've been offered a peerage already, and turned it down.

I stood for parliament with the amazing support and help of my ex-husband, but it's not something that was handed to me like a peerage. I worked hard and was elected. So my achievements, such as they are, are my own.

There are some tremendous actors in the U.K. who have been knighted, and I've spent much of my life admiring many of them, like Laurence Olivier. So it's very flattering to be in their company. But you also end up in the company of people you don't admire, including some rather dodgy politicians.

There is an honourable tradition in British public life that those charged with authority at the top of an organisation should accept responsibility for what happens in that organisation. I am therefore writing to the prime minister today to tender my resignation as chairman of the BBC.

I'm rather cynical about the way the honours system is used, frankly. A whole lot of the honours system is used for political purposes by the government in power.

Indeed upon much that may have to say, I expect rather the charitable judgment than the full assent of those whose approbation I could most wish to win.

I'm not sure it pays to do anything remotely public in Britain. It's such a spiteful society. People seem to enjoy making your life hard for the sake of it.

All I can do is advocate changes at the BBC while respecting editorial independence upon which the success of the BBC rests. I can't do anything that requires the BBC to pay certain people certain amounts.

When the Lord Chancellor violates the trust of his great office of state to solicit party donations from people whose careers he can control, and then says I'm not sorry, and I'd do it again no wonder the public think that power has gone to their heads.

I don't generally believe in people being knighted.