The one thing we can all be sure about in politics is you are as well to expect the unexpected.

I believe that access to a university education should be based on the ability to learn, not what people can afford. I think there is no more nauseating a sight than politicians pulling up the ladder of opportunity behind them.

Further Education should be about the ability to learn, not the ability to pay - everyone who is able should have the opportunity, regardless of their family background. I don't want to see students struggling with huge debts or frightened off even going to university in the first place.

The quicker we get rid of the lobby system the better for all of us. I don't think in this day and age it is tenable to have these nods and winks, and on-the-record and off-the-record briefings.

I think that former leaders are best seen occasionally and not too often heard - particularly on the subject of their successors!

Courage is a peculiar kind of fear.

My idealism has not abated, but I have witnessed it withering away nationwide, to the point where at least among the young, to have ideals is akin to being blinkered and oldfashioned.