© Unsurprisingly, the ideas of the Levellers were considered extremely dangerous by those with a vested interest in the preservation of privilege, property and power.
"There are a lot of vested interests, so that it's extremely difficult to get anything done".
The discussion is dominated by vested interests and the extremes.
He has a part to play, and on this occasion it is as an extremely accomplished broadcaster for a company with a huge vested interest in cranking up the Ashes hype.
The vested interests who control the financial architecture, and have an extremely powerful voice in the corridors of power, simply don't want to change because they still benefit hugely from the status quo, despite seeing the ruin they have brought on all of us.
But it is extremely hard to see her colleagues rallying around her, and she has a vested interest in that she would be a contender in any forthcoming leadership race.
What's more, extremely powerful forces inside the Iranian political-military-security-religious establishments have a vested interest in continued, if manageable, conflict with the United States, as well as with keeping a tight lid on cultural expression, at least publicly.
At the moment, the gathering is done by the FBI, whose director, Robert Mueller, vigorously opposes any idea to split off spying from policing, even though most spooks insist that spying and policing are often contradictory things.That battle is for the future, but similar vested interests are bound to make Mr Ridge's nice draft design extremely hard to put into practice.
It is an extremely challenging time… I don't have huge faith in many Member States to do this, there's so many vested interests, vested security interests to not do this — but we have to try and do this".
