Julia Hartley-Brewer

Just as good schools need strong headteachers, so good governments need strong prime ministers.

Sure, for a one-to-one chat about life, the universe and everything, give me a woman. But when it comes to a group gathering, whether for work or play, I'd opt for men every time.

The women whose company I most enjoy are invariably loud, opinionated, funny types who can best be described as 'blokey.' But they are not, sadly, representative of my gender as a whole.

It's not that women aren't funny or that they're not interesting company , it's just that you can sometimes have too much of a supportive, intuitive, caring, sharing kind of thing.

The unrelieved company of women can be a little wearing at times. And, to be brutally honest, men are often a lot more fun.

Soldiering on is a national trait of which to be proud, not one to be mocked.

We must not allow Covid to turn us into a country of hypochondriacs, fearful of every minor symptom. Yes, of course if you may have a highly infectious deadly disease, you should not put your colleagues at risk, but let's not pretend every cough is going to kill us.

As a self-employed contractor who only gets paid if I turn up to work, I am painfully aware of the cost of a day at home.

The war being fought against coronavirus has been led by the battle cry of We Must Do Something. Even if that Something is simply coming up with a new rule even more stupid than the last one.

Most offices - and especially those in the public sector - are full of people who have very impressive job titles, look terribly busy, bashing away on their keyboards, cc-ing everyone on emails and spending hour upon hour in meetings, yet no one has any idea what it is that they actually do all day.

I'm far less bothered by on screen stars earning the big bucks than the legions of middle management behind the scenes at the BBC who enjoy six figure salaries at taxpayers' expense.

Miscarriage is one of the hardest things for both parents to deal with because often no one outside your relationship or immediate family even knows you are pregnant.

The Government and the police are only able to do their jobs with the consent of the people.

Of course some people who oppose mass migration are racists, but then so are some of the people who support it.

Teaching is supposed to be a vocation for life - not a lifelong vacation.

Boris Johnson 'doesn't do detail.' It is a criticism that has dogged his political and journalistic career.

The one good thing to come out of the entire Brexit saga is that at least we, the poor hitherto unsuspecting voters, now know that many of our elected representatives don't respect us at all.

For Mr Corbyn, the E.U. is something of an irrelevance. At worst, it is a bureaucratic irritation. At best, it provides a useful expose of deep Tory fissures that may well explode in David Cameron's face.

While the ranks of MPs on all sides of the Commons, along with most of the country, are busy splitting into two camps, either for or against Britain staying in the European Union, you'd be hard pressed to know what Jeremy Corbyn thinks.

There are lots of things that Jeremy Corbyn feels strongly about. He definitely doesn't like wars, nuclear weapons, or free market capitalism. He dislikes Tories, the Liberal Democrats and anyone to do with New Labour. He also doesn't like austerity, big business, private schools, student tuition fees, the bedroom tax, the monarchy and God.

With friends like Monsieur Macron, who needs enemies?

There will always be border controls between France and Britain, whether we are in the E.U. or not, simply because we are not in the Schengen free trade area.

Funnily enough, countries tend not to do things that are against their own interests and the French government knows that opening up a travel point into the U.K. at Calais would be an unmitigated disaster for them.

Chancellors have long been known to keep one last trick up their sleeves on Budget Day so that, at the end of a long, turgid speech, they can pull a rabbit from the hat with a flourish and bask in the glory of cheering backbenchers.

When did we all become so fragile that mere metaphors could turn us all into fainting flowers? When did we stop being allowed to take the mickey, to poke fun at, and, yes, be a bit rude and cruel about things we don't like?

I didn't start trying for my first baby until I was 36 - partly because of my career and partly because I had not yet met a man with whom I wanted to start a family.

I love my country, but I live in it for 46 weeks of the year, so is it really so terrible to admit that, when I go on holiday, I want to spend a few weeks somewhere - anywhere - else?

Travelling abroad was once a luxury only the very rich could afford.

I have the most wonderful childhood memories of holidays in the golden age before foreign package holidays were even a glint in Michael O'Leary's eye.

Appearing on shows like 'Question Time' and 'Have I Got News For You,' you learn to expect a certain amount of criticism and name-calling. For a woman in the public eye it goes with the territory.

I am a big fan of Jeremy Clarkson and I love watching him on TV and reading his various columns. I think he's funny and irreverent and adds to the gaiety of nations.

I am a patriot. I love my country and its values and I am also immensely grateful to the brave souls who fought and died for our country to be free.

Corbyn, like me, is a republican and an atheist. How then can we possibly be expected to sing along to an anthem which begins with the words 'God save our gracious Queen?'

It is not disrespectful or offensive to refuse to sing a song that espouses views with which you actively disagree; it is simply being honest.

If there is one sentence I never thought I would write it is this one: I agree with Jeremy Corbyn.

There's a difference between right and wrong and most people know where that line should be drawn. But there's an even bigger and starker difference between what should and should not be a crime.

After my own trials and tribulations, I have become evangelical in my campaign to educate and advise young women not to leave starting a family until too late, advising colleagues to 'get on with it' as soon as possible.

I have a dozen or so friends who all desperately wanted children but left it too late and now regret all those years leaving it 'just another six months.'

An infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters might be able to write the complete works of William Shakespeare but the Bard himself, a devotee of the colourful metaphor, would struggle to be able to write a single sonnet in these politically correct times.

Yes, we can control not getting pregnant with free and easily available contraception. But when it comes to getting pregnant when you want to, then Mother Nature has a lot more input than most of us would like to think.

The idea that laws don't apply to the law-makers is for despotic regimes.

The most fundamental principle of the law is that it must apply equally to everyone.

Great Britain didn't just happen; the British people created this country through decades and centuries of hard work, fighting for democracy, the welfare state and all the other benefits we currently enjoy.

We can offer trade deals or international aid, by all means, and we should never desert asylum seekers in their time of need, but we don't have a moral responsibility to open our doors to the five billion-odd people on this planet who live in poorer countries than ours.

While I have nothing but admiration and respect for anyone who wants to travel across a continent to make a new life for themselves and improve their lot, the reality is that British taxpayers don't owe the rest of the world a living.

We have no duty of care to improve the lot of poor Romanians or Poles or Pakistanis or anyone else who is not a British citizen.

There is absolutely nothing racist or xenophobic about being concerned about the pressures on housing, schools, the NHS, our roads, public transport and community cohesion that years of mass uncontrolled immigration has brought.

We already punch well above our weight thanks to our economic might, our military and our soft power. That isn't going to change if we leave the E.U.

We don't need the E.U. for our economy to thrive.

Racism is not exclusive to one side of the political divide.