KWASI KWARTENG

Clearly, for capitalism to work properly we must expect some upward normalisation of interest rates at some future point, to provide greater incentive for savers to save and investors to invest.

From the start of her leadership of the Conservative party in February 1975, Thatcher's style seemed shrill and uncompromising, and she became an easy object of mockery. When she left office nearly 16 years later, she was a widely recognised, but clearly still highly controversial, figure.

Margaret Thatcher was Britain's most controversial modern politician.

One good outcome of elections is that fresh talent comes into the House of Commons.

I think interventions tend to be wrong. That doesn't mean to say that every intervention has been a disaster, but it does mean that generally they tend to screw up.

History is of all subjects the one which is most engaged with people's perceptions of themselves, identity, politics, all those things which shape the modern world.

In Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Angola and Cameroon maize is a staple, yet the earliest mention of maize in west Africa comes from a Portuguese document that lists it as being loaded on to slave ships bound for Africa.

Mansa Musa never spoke in public, and whispered everything to an interpreter; he was also never allowed to be seen eating a meal.

I don't see how a lowering of VAT helps much, in terms of stimulus. VAT is a form of sales tax. It gets paid when you spend. A stimulus should put money in your pocket before you have actually spent the money.

It's often been said that conservatism is successful because it chimes with these basic human instincts. It's time for us to ask fundamental questions about what the Conservative Party is for, and what it actually believes.

Using food as a way of understanding empire is highly effective. Food knows no barriers of race, gender or even time.

Of all the meals that represented British culture, perhaps none captured the imagination more than the Christmas pudding. It was the Victorians who firmly fixed the traditional plum pudding as a festive dish.

Conservatives should never be shy in promoting a strong case for individual enterprise. We should acknowledge where the system doesn't work, and seek to amend it.

If you are a borrower, the more you borrow, the more it costs.

The bull market, rising prices, earning lots of money, make it seem as if the good days will never end. When prices are falling and there is a recession, that also feels as though it will last for ever. Politics is the same. People simply can't imagine changing circumstances.

Mrs Thatcher not only made history by becoming Britain's first female prime minister, she was the first woman to hold any comparable position in the western world.

The idea that, in the age of Google, Facebook and the internet, government can control the 'commanding heights' of the economy is one of the great delusions of our age. Modern techonology, social media, the explosion of online retail, among many other things, have meant that governments have less and less control.

The name Noel Skelton is largely forgotten today, but his legacy in the Conservative Party in the 20th century was enormous.

The contrast between a figure such as Mark Zuckerberg, a billionaire before he was 30, and Alfred Krupp, who spent 60 years building one of the biggest manufacturing concerns in the world, is striking.

Aspiration, opportunity, and a stake in society are things which combine education, decent healthcare and the fruits of a capitalist system where individuals contribute to society, while also pursuing their natural inclination to improve their lot in life.

For the British working class, the restrictions of conflict actually improved their diet. Under Lord Woolton, the minister for food, a programme of free school meals was introduced. Priority supplies of milk were provided for pregnant women and nursing mothers, while orange juice, milk and cod liver oil were given to the under-fives.

The extent to which lawyers and judges are interfering in politics is something that concerns many people.

The idea that historians aren't affected by what goes on around them I think is slightly fanciful.

Any book on empire will omit, by necessity, vast tracts of the imperial experience, and so critics can easily find facts and details to contradict an author's bold generalisations.

I remember being told after the 1992 general election that Labour could never win a majority in Britain ever again.