I learnt a lot about myself, I learnt a lot about other people and the problems they have. If I was lucky enough to live to a hundred, how I will feel about two per cent of my life being that way, I don't know.

What I have found is that real friends stand by you.

When I was deputy chairman I could travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh without leaving Tory land. In a two-week period I covered every constituency in which we had an MP. There were 14. Now we have only one. We appear to have given up.

A strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength.

I've loved art for more than 30 years.

I put £150,000 into the stage production of Grease and have got back £1.5 million so far. It has been a fantastic success.

There are defining moments in one's life when you learn about yourself, and you deposit that knowledge in the experience account, so you can draw on it at some later date.