You are involved with many institutions and organisations, ranging from charities such as Crisis, to educational establishments such as Roehampton University, to the Walpole Committee, which “furthers the interests of the British luxury industry”. You also remain heavily involved in journalistic organisations, as chairman of the Media Standards Trust and non-executive director of The Economist.

Do you feel that your contributions to all of these organisations are linked in some way? Or do they all represent very different interests and areas of concern for you?

Apart from Walpole – which I helped develop when at the FT and have stayed with for that reason – I guess there are two themes, if that does not sound too overblown. I am very concerned about social exclusion and fearful that as a country we may be in danger of going backwards whether in our provision for the single homeless (Crisis), or the young (Transformation Trust) or, close to home, in the University sector. I loved my time at Cambridge and am still very supportive of it, notably on behalf of Cambridge’s very successful Centre for Gender Studies, but I was honoured to become chair of the University of Roehampton precisely because half its students are first generation university students, and over a quarter from minority backgrounds. I fear that the new fee structure risks closing off access for these students just at the time when it is needed most, and youth unemployment is unacceptably high.

The other strand has to do with the media in which I have spent my life, and where I think high standards are more important than ever. I am very lucky to be a director of The Economist, one of the greatest publications in the world. I helped start the Media Standards Trust because I think that unless the British press radically reforms itself, it risks having the government try to do it which would be a disaster.

Do you feel that the current financial crisis has created a greater appreciation of the important work that charitable organisations do, or are they simply struggling to achieve their aims because of cutbacks?

I like the idea of the Big Society, but have no clear idea what it means in practice. The government risks emasculating some of the very organisations on which it appears to be depending.

Pearson aims to help people reach their potential through learning, Silatech aims to "connect young people with employment and enterprise opportunities" and Common Purpose helps people to become better leaders at work and in society. How could we as a society be doing more to ensure everyone is reaching their potential?

It’s a big question and needs more space than I imagine you have. But we could start by not rubbishing many of our schools and many of our universities. Education, and not just in a narrow vocational sense, is something we are good at. We must not throw that away.

Do you fear that the British arts industry is suffering too much because of government cutbacks, or is it better and more sensible to spend money elsewhere?

Yes and no.

You began your career in journalism at the Oxford Mail & Times in 1970. Did you always have journalism in mind as a career?

Yes I think so, though Harold Wilson said we had a duty to go into industry and I toyed with that too. I loved Varsity because it taught me a huge amount, and I loved The Oxford Mail because it was so much a part of its community and the training was excellent. I would not have missed it for the world.

You are also chairman for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. Do you think that 9/11 and subsequent events changed journalism?

No. But IWPR is dedicated to the proposition that every society needs good journalists able to speak ‘truth to power’. It does brilliantly in training journalists in some of the toughest places in the world and has a fantastic record. Strong, accurate fearless reporting is a great antidote to extremism.

Do you think that we expect too much of journalists in conflict zones?

No. That's a part of the job and we should be incredibly grateful for the bravery of the people who do it.

Your career has clearly developed in the most fascinating and varied ways – how did you come to be involved in such a great and diverse number of organisations, and is there anything in your career that you would have done differently?

Mostly luck. I would like to have learned another language and worked somewhere where English was not the first language – maybe China.

Any words of advice for those considering a career in journalism, or working in the charitable sector?

The News Editor of The Oxford Mail was a marvellous man who lived all his life in Oxford but was of the generation that could not afford to go to University. He once said to me, as he tore up one of my stories, that I had forgotten that all news is at root about people and how they treat each other. That was excellent advice and holds as true at The Financial Times as it does everywhere else. I also much agree with Thomas Jefferson who once said that if made to choose he would prefer a government of newspapers to one of politicians. Journalism is a great bulwark in defence of liberty, which is why I am so lucky to have been involved with it all my life.

In the charitable sector I guess the important thing if to try and act on the basis that it really is possible to change things. There is a great inscription on a funeral cairn of a young German pilot who helped found the Serengeti National Park: ‘it is better to light a candle than to rail against the darkness’.