The thing about politicians in Britain is that they are out there, you can lobby them, get close to them, there are loads of ways you can protest against them, and booing is a pretty weak way of doing it.

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

Like most meaningful activities, campaigns are team games.

In an ideal world, it would not take a film star to get the media focused on mental illness.

Tony [Blair] slowly sucked me back in for the 2005 campaign, and from six months out, I was basically working full time trying to keep the Tony[Blair] - Gordon[Brown] thing together for the campaign. It was awful.

There is something in me that makes me see things through.

I want to write more books, see my first novel made into a film, fight more campaigns, work in more countries. I want to be able to recall experiences that have endured for their pleasure and range and intensity.