Thought For The Day: Paul O'Grady

"The Bedroom Tax is bloody ridiculous. I think it’s disgusting and just another way of taxing people.
“It’s like the Sheriff of Nottingham. As though they’ve got up and said, ‘The old Queen is dead. The ­peasants will pay for her funeral. What can we tax? I know, bedrooms.’ It’s fairytale nonsense.“I think the Coalition are absolutely disgusting. They have no idea what the common working man and woman are doing.
“They are not in touch with the working classes. They have led privileged lives – they’ve had public schools and have never been on the shop floor...
“We want this lot out. The way they treat the elderly and the way they treat carers. A carer gets £53 for looking after someone.“I’ve been a carer and I know what it’s like to be isolated for 24 hours a day seven days a week. You go out of your mind and you are left alone.
“And the way they treat children and the NHS. It is just demolishing us and they are ruining the country...
“You go to Birkenhead and it’s all boarded up. There is no work, there is nothing for kids, not a thing. Then you wonder why they get into trouble, you wonder why there is crime and why there are drugs.“This government just shuns half of the community. They are worse than Thatcher – 50 times."

Paul O'Grady in the Sunday People.

Full diclosure: I've edited out some things he said about Ed Miliband, who Paul says he recently had dinner with, in the interests of my own bias.