Biography

You either loved Jimmy Savile or loathed him. Easy choice for me: he was totally talentless, tiresome on air and I later found repellent in person.

[on the BBC's coverage of the Diamond Jubilee in 2012] The one enduring British institution [the Monarchy] was mocked by another that had shamefully lost its way. On the screen, a succession of Daytime airheads preened themselves, or gossiped with even more vacuous D-list "celebrities". With barely an exception, they were cringingly inept. Nobody knew anything, nobody cared. The main presenter couldn't even work out what to call the Queen. The Dunkirk Little Ships, the most evocative reminders of this country's bravest hour, were ignored so that a pneumatic bird-brain from Strictly Come Dancing could talk to transvestites in Battersea Park. I was so ashamed of the BBC I would have wept if I hadn't been so angry. The worst thing was that it was deliberate - planned that way to be "light" and "inclusive". The BBC actually congratulated itself, and the executive ultimately responsible was promptly promoted to become the most disastrous director-general in the Corporation's history.

I didn't see Live Aid (1985). I knew it was happening, but South African television didn't carry it. South Africa was the story of the day with townships in flames and riots. On the day of Live Aid I was actually being teargassed by the police. The money raised, however, would have saved about one to two million lives. Live Aid made a terrific difference. But actually, the key thing it did, which utterly dwarfed Band Aid and Live Aid, was to force a change of policy in the EU and particularly in the UK and America. The public opinion that they mobilised and represented was what counted.

[on "Do They Know It's Christmas" by Band Aid] It's a nice song but it's complete bollocks, actually.

[on reporting from South Africa in the 1980s] Our white suburbs were dedicated to the pursuit of graciousness. When our blacks were hungry, we didn't tell them to eat cake, we ate it ourselves.