As usual the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas. Unfortunately none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is sound.

I am MacWonder one moment and MacBlunder the next.

Britain's most useful role is somewhere between bee and dinosaur.

Power? It's like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there.

A Foreign Secretaryand this applies also to a prospective Foreign Secretaryis always faced with this cruel dilemma. Nothing he can say can do very much good, and almost anything he may say may do a great deal of harm. Anything he says that is not obvious is dangerous; whatever is not trite is risky. He is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion.

It is, of course, a trite observation to say that we live "in a period of transition." Many people have said this at many times. Adam may well have made the remark to Eve on leaving the Garden of Eden.

There might be 1 finger on the trigger, but there will be 15 fingers on the safety catch.