Nowhere else in the world do the laws on firearms become the playthings of politicians and lobbyists intent on manufacturing cultural conflict. Nowhere else do elected officials turn the matter of taking a gun to church into a searing ideological question. But then, guns are not a religion in most countries.

I think this is a scary thing [hacking] that does have to be taken out of a partisan context. And one of the best pieces of news this morning is a joint statement, Senator [Chuck] Schumer, Senator [Harry] Reid for the Democrats,John McCain and Lindsey Graham from the Republicans, saying we have to get to the bottom of this.

In the Trump language, words change their meaning day by day depending on his own political needs.

Hope is different from optimism. Hope is a tough virtue, not a psychological predisposition. Hope insists on taking facts and reason into account and still insisting that improvement ... is always a real possibility.

I think Donald Trump simply needs to make himself look less bigoted, less dangerous, more comfortable to people.

At the heart of my argument is the view that religious faith, far from being inevitably on the side of the status quo, should on principle hold this world to higher standards.

[ Donald Trump is] candidate who said he has more confidence in Vladimir Putin's strength than in Barack Obama's strength. His closeness to Putin is a very scary thing for the country and the fact that the news was dominated for 33 days I think it was by WikiLeaks stories, that had an impact on states that were decided by a knife-edge.