It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.

I'm no communist.I'm a tax cutting Conservative. But I want a capitalism that is fairer to forgotten people.

The job of mayor of London is unbelievably taxing, particularly in the run-up to the Olympics.

I think the risks that people see of terrorism are incredibly important but we are very confident we have got the right people on it and the risks have been minimised.

London is the sporting capital of the world. I say to the Chinese and I say to the world, ping pong is coming home.

Churchill knew instinctively what was wrong with communism - that it repressed liberty; that it replaced individual discretion with state control; that it entailed the curtailment of democracy, and therefore that it was tyrannous.

I'm a one-nation Tory.