Congratulations to Barack Obama - great victory based on building fairer economy and optimism about what politics can achieve.

The most important lesson of New Labour is this: Every time we made progress we did it by challenging the conventional wisdom.

My beliefs will run through everything I do. My beliefs, my values are my anchor and when people try to drag me, as I know they will, it is to that sense of right and wrong, that sense of who I am and what I believe, to which I will always hold.

Margaret Thatcher was the first political leader in any major country to warn of the dangers of climate change

I treat opinion polls with a pinch of sugar.

We have to create security for the working families of Britain, and that's what I'll do

I come from a generation that suffered school lessons in portacabins and crumbling hospitals. I tell you one thing, for the eighteen years they were in power the Tories did nothing to fix the roof when the sun was shining.