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

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.

Hong Kong's people will get what they want, despite China's objections. Freedom invariably wins in the end.

There is a sort of exotic preposterousness about a lot of elections, the way arguments are made even cruder.

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.

It is curious that atheists have proved to be so intolerant of those who have a faith.