The British press has an insatiable appetite for making public things that should be private. It's a prurience that I've never understood.

When I first came to Oxford, I struggled to feel comfortable in an Anglican, public school-dominated institution.

As a financial historian, I was quite isolated in Oxford - British historians are supposed to write about kings - so the quality of intellectual life in my field is much higher at Harvard. The students work harder there.

Over time, the welfare state has become dysfunctional in a surprising way. But in a way it became a victim of its own success: It became so successful at prolonging life, that it becomes financially unsustainable, unless you make major changes to things like retirement ages.

The British press has been unfair to me and the public has followed.

That may raise the obvious question of whether there's an insatiable appetite on the part of the county commission to raise as much money as they can at any point in time. Even if they can't spend it now, they can build up rainy-day funds, or they can bankroll for some major project down the line. I don't think there's going to be tremendous public support for that.