Thank you very much to thee. Thank you. It's a...So: after over 100 years of Class Days, finally you get a British speaker.What took you so long? Did that little disagreement of 1776 really rankle so much?And why now? Is it because British election campaigns only last four weeks?For whatever reason, it is an honour to be here and to say to the Yale College Class of 2008:you did it; you came through; from all of us to you: congratulations.The invitation to a former British Prime Minister to address a college which boasts five former Presidents,many former Vice Presidents and Senators too numerous to mention,is either to give me an exaggerated sense of my own importance or you a reduced sense of yours.It was Churchill or Oscar Wilde―and there is a difference―who called us two nations divided by a common language and so we are.Here I am at Yale and set to come back for the fall semester.
