Munira Mirza

“We need to have a view that culture has a value in itself, not just in terms of a social and economic value.”

“I have met people who have received E.U. funding and regretted it.”

“I think Londoners welcome a spectacular event.”

“A hero usually rises above the ordinary because he or she exemplifies some virtue that everyone can recognize.”

“There is a sense of civic connection to the city when you light up iconic buildings or sites.”

“But I do love working for Boris because he never stops. He's always fizzing with good ideas, and when you are looking after culture, that is important. He's quite ambitious for London.”

“Some Muslim lobby groups have argued that Christian groups already have public funding for their schools and services so they should too. In response, there are now Hindu and Sikh organisations demanding their own concessions lest they feel left out. The demand to wear the headscarf one day spurs the demand to wear the crucifix the next.”

“I think that there is a tendency to underestimate the public.”

“Stop and search has a controversial history and has not always been carried out professionally by individual officers. Liberal-minded people are right to be wary about its overuse. However, it is also regarded by most people as a legitimate and necessary tactic.”

“We give money to the E.U. and they give it back according to the priorities they choose, with an unelected group of people choosing those priorities.”

“By importing into the U.K. the divisive politics of anti-racism from America, with its demented campus dramas and neuroses about 'safe spaces', 'micro-aggressions' and 'cultural appropriation,' they make it almost impossible for people of goodwill of all ethnicities to rub along together.”

“The most anyone could reasonably say about institutional racism is that the 'evidence is far from conclusive.”

“Londoners deserve a great, free music festival with excellent bands from around the world. They don't need to be hectored about why racism is bad or accosted by activists explaining why Castro is a hero.”

“Certainly, 'creativity' has been a vital plank of New Labour strategy. It not only hands out money with the enthusiasm of a Medici, but also invites the talented arts world into the very heart of government.”

“I think that in the past there has been a kind of cultural resistance to Latin because it's associated with elitism.”

“Throughout history, cities have been associated with incredible bursts of creative energy - the Renaissance in Florence, or modernism in Paris. London is the cultural metropolis of the early 21st century.”

“The political elite prefers to see criminals as victims in need of therapy and TLC.”

“Paradoxically, by insisting on engaging with Muslims as a separate group, the authorities make many of them feel even more excluded.”

“Few, if any, political analysts predicted the Arab Spring. The raw energy of millions of protestors in the streets of Tunis and Cairo came as a surprise to many who believed that Arabs were essentially reconciled to their governments and non-democratic rule.”

“Some people think that culture is overhyped and peripheral. A season of opera is less important than the refurbishment of a school, they say. Leaving aside the poverty of imagination and aspiration implicit in such a sentiment, it also ignores hardheaded economic reality: Britain, and London in particular, makes big money from culture.”