Every nation necessarily inhabits a morally compromised space. All too often our ideals seem to be held to ransom by what we believe, rightly or wrongly, to be objective reality.
I faced odds when glaucoma took the bat out of my hands. But I didn't give in or feel sorry for myself. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: 'It may be cloudy in my right eye, but the sun is shining very brightly in my left eye.'
My view is different. Public relations are a key component of any operation in this day of instant communications and rightly inquisitive citizens.
I work in politics and media, two industries that have been particularly affected by the issue of misconduct. We have seen famous and powerful men finally pay a price for behavior they got away with for decades. Many have lost their positions and status - rightly so.
Individual bankers are rightly being investigated by the police. I and all colleagues in the chamber hope that if criminality is proven, they will go to jail and bear the same brunt of punishment as any other criminal.
Jamie Oliver, quite rightly, was talking about trying to improve the diet of children in schools and improving school meals, but the net effect was the number of children eating school meals in many of these places didn't go up, it went down.
If we remind ourselves of the fact that every fifth American today rightly points and perhaps also with a certain degree of pride to his German ancestry or her German ancestry, we can safely say that we, indeed, share common roots.
Americans are rightly concerned about the security and the integrity of the nation's borders because the system is broken. Some are concerned about the possibility of terrorists crossing our borders and coming into our cities.
When you talk about professional footballers, rightly or wrongly, people often already have an idea in their head about what they're like; they'll paint a picture before they've met them.
Britain has always been a good citizen in the world. We rightly provide a safe haven for people fleeing political persecution by brutal regimes. Our legal system is often seen as a beacon for the rest of the world, with people coming from all over to study it and embed its principles into their own systems.
