But the ability to articulate what you are doing, to be clear about it, and to stick to it is, I think, the essence of political leadership.

So, what I say to people is that politics has got to be about principle and values above all. Of course, there are times when you have to make accommodations.

In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including the jerks.

Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off.

It'd make a wonderful change to have the leader of a pluralist democracy who acted on that, who told people just how tough things are going to be, just what's going to have to be done - and, maybe, ran all the risks on the side of honesty, rather than spinning stories and trying to win the headlines every day.

Anyone who supposed that when Margaret Thatcher left Number Ten she was going to take a Trappist vow did not know that formidable politician.

Undoubtedly, at the moment, the major cause of CO2 emission is what happens in developed countries.