The day of the daredevil reporter who refuses to see obstacles to getting the truth, and seeing it with his or her own eyes, seems to have died.

I have always been driven. I have always believed in what I believe very deeply.

So here is one of my theories on happiness: we cannot know if we have lived a truly happy life until the very end. This view of life and death was reinforced by my close witnessing of the buildup to the death of Philip Gould. Philip was without doubt my closest friend in politics. When he died, I felt like I had lost a limb.

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

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.

One in four of us will have a mental illness at some point. That is a lot of people.

The junk food of political journalism...all reshuffle stories are crap.