Ben Harnwell

Which is great.

Which is great, OK?

Especially Italy.

Beautiful, beautiful country.

But I sort of think it's somewhat quixotic to be obsessing so much at an institutional level, they have the laws that back this up, about the uniformity of roof tiles and have very little concern as to the people that are living beneath those roof tiles.

The point I'd like to try to make, and it's a controversial point in some quarters, but surely human beings, people, culture, communities, values, religious background, those things are more important than roof tiles.

That's what I wanted to come here and share with you today.

I would like to try to contribute to a change in attitudes and a change in the conversation that we can have publicly where we can say, roof tiles are fine, trees are fine, but let's put a little bit of energy into preserving what's going on underneath the roof tiles, right?

Because that's more important.

Now, I sort of think, I've been involved in, I first worked in Parliament, in the UK Parliament, in 95, so that's like over 30 years ago, and I know you're going to say, come on, Hanwell, you're lying, you can't possibly be that old.

I heard, I felt the brainwaves, you're thinking, but it's...

I was, I was working there for 30 years.

And I sort of developed this, you know, when people say, what's the core of your political philosophy?

Well, it splits into two really.

I'm quite libertarian in the sense that I hate paying tax.

And that's really the starting point of my political philosophy, is that I hate paying tax, because as Ronald Reagan said, I know how government wastes my money.

The second thing is, I think there is an onus of those who are involved in politics to work towards a society

which is slightly better than the one that they were born into.

You can serve what's important.

You have policy experiments.