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

Greg Dyke is on record as saying that once the BBC was attacked, it was their job to defend themselves. But that is not their job.

There are many reasons for the decline in royal esteem. One is that so many of the royals are thick.

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

If you look at the other people around at the time - Charles Clarke, Alistair Darling, Jack Straw - they've all gone. And they're not old. What's happened is that someone who is quite old - Jeremy Corbyn - is now leader. We have to take some responsibility for that.

I remember talking to Alex Ferguson about Tony [Blair] and Gordon [Brown], and he said: "Why doesn't Tony just get rid of him?" But if you sack someone in football, they can't turn up to training the next day. In politics they're still on the pitch. Gordon would still have been a big player.

I'm certainly driven, I hate losing, I can be ruthless and short-tempered and terribly competitive.