GW: I'm deeply impressed by the Germans, by what they've done. I cannot quantify the country, I cannot tell you that 18 per cent of people are wonderful guys, 80 per cent are not. But there is a kind of German who has overcome the Nazi past, who has a specific attitude towards democracy, towards Jews, towards the churches. Some of my best friends are there. I like many people in the new generation enormously, and I think they have been blessed with having very good politicians at key moments: the combination of Adenauer, Kohl, Merkel, and there's a lot to be said for Brandt, Schmidt and even Schröder. 

I mean, Schröder made some mistakes on the question of the Iraq war and so on — not in the sense that he would not send some troops there, but that he didn't do what Harold Wilson did so skilfully. Harold Wilson was asked by Johnson to get involved in Vietnam and he said, "I wish you luck. Ideologically I'm on your side, but there are a hundred reasons why I cannot do it." Schröder could have done the same thing. Instead he said, "We're not sending you anybody, and what's more you're doing a wicked thing." 

So I say that they were blessed with having people who I call "fulfilment politicians". Adenauer's greatness was that he took things as they were and made the best out of it. 

If the Arabs had Adenauer and Mandela, they would today be a prosperous people. It is unbelievable how the Arab world is where it is now, with billions of refugees rotting in camps, in the slums of Cairo, the slums of the great cities — the refugee camps that I've seen in Gaza being Hollywood luxury villas compared to what goes on there. The rich, oil-producing countries have not produced the money to look after their own people.    

They've not produced anything that they can be really proud of. This is terrible, and I say this with great regret and pity, not with hate in any way. On the contrary. I have perhaps played down in this conversation the number of things I have done with Arabs and for Arabs. I've helped them set up a Booker prize, and helped the expansion of translation in the Arab world, and I have great friends in the Arab camp, in Morocco and Jordan, etc. 

But I think that the Germans today are in a key position geographically, politically and culturally. Geographically, because they are the ones who can build bridges with Russia. But a drawbridge, not a bridge: the concept of a bridge is misleading, because a bridge means neutrality, a bridge means I create a bridge for you from one part of the world to the other. The drawbridge is part of the West — it's there and you can come in, but if you don't want to, then it is drawn back.

DJ: So the Germans must still defend Western values?

GW: I see Germany as the drawbridge of the Western world, but a very solid one, and there's room for the Russians to come in, or come back to the Peter the Great, Catherine the Great mentality, of a Western country. Germans are earnest people; they have gravitas, and they have an openness to the world. The positive preoccupation with Jewish issues, for instance, and of the contribution of Jews to the cultural elite and to the cultural history of Germany is another good thing. I find therefore that I feel very much at home there, but I can't quantify it. And I believe that they have a great Chancellor — I believe that Angela Merkel is one of the most remarkable politicians alive today.