I think that if politics is just about getting your backside on important seats, then it's a pretty worthless endeavor.

You don't have to wait until people say they accept everything you say until you are actually prepared to sit down and discuss matters with them.

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

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 suppose I've always carried what is regarded as a bit of unnecessary baggage in Britain. I've always carried the charge that I am an intellectual in politics.

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

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.