The media are obsessed with spin doctors and with portraying them as a bad thing, yet seem addicted to our medicine.

As Tony [Blair] said in his book, Gordon [Brown] was brilliant and impossible. If he'd just been one of those things, the options are obvious.

I used to be very routine-based and the new thing in my life is not having a clear, full-time existence.

Paul Keating told us before we were elected that you can do deals with [Rupert] Murdoch without saying you were doing a deal. Did we do that kind of thing? Maybe. But from around about the turn of the century, I felt strongly that we had to do something about media ownership and self-regulation. Tony [Blair] disagreed.

Like most meaningful activities, campaigns are team games.

We should confine booing in sports arenas to sport. I love a good boo as much as the next football fan.

I hold no candle for George Osborne whatsoever. He has no strategic skills, is a hopeless chancellor, has no idea how most people have to live and his policies are failing and hurting millions.