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

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.

It behaves more like a tribe than a democratic institution...responding to custom rather than reason and using its own liturgy and language for the conduct of its domestic affairs.

It is almost always wrong that the time isn't ripe to decide something. That is always said of difficult problems.

Those of us who had a perfectly happy childhood should be able to sue for deprivation of literary royalties.

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.

I think that what most surprises anybody who goes into politics from even a modestly cerebral background is the vulgarity of much of the cut and thrust of politics.