Even in Britain, the trade unions tell me that employment contracts have less protection than in the past.

The unions still have a job to do, representing their members' interests to governments and parliaments. And I think collective agreements still have a role, alongside markets and laws.

I had to think whether, after 50 years of hard slog, I was still lucid and fresh enough for the job.

Cinema explains American society. It's like a Western, with good guys and bad guys, where the weak don't have a place.

Many times, my role was to work as a link between the coaches and the players; it was to be a leader. That was something natural for me.

As a leader, you sit at a different level of perspective from your team, either with line of sight higher and across the organization structure or connected at more senior levels with your clients and partners.

The 'transition' involves the transfer of power from one president to another. In recent times, the incoming President has designated a Director of the Transition, a team leader, to oversee and administer the orderly transfer of power.

True enough, Osama bin Laden is dead and other al-Qaeda leaders have joined him. But, the assassination of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi is a brutal reminder that radical Islamic terror groups have not disappeared and certainly are not dormant.