Roger Scruton on the interview that got him fired

Roger Scruton has appeared on the Today programme to discuss the interview that got him fired. Here is the full transcript and recording of his conversation with Justin Webb:

RS: I don’t think I spoke intemperately. I speak as I speak and I discuss things as they are presented to me, according to my vision of them. But you know obviously the way in which it was presented in the New Statesman was such as to cause some kind of scandal.

JW: At one stage, George Eaton, well he tweeted these words that he ascribed to you, ‘each Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one and that is a very frightening thing’. Let’s listen to the context of that:

There are difficulties around the corner that we are ignoring like the rise of China. There’s something quite frightening about the Chinese sort of mass politics and the regimentation of the ordinary being.