The Conservatives must realise that being sceptical is different from being phobic in what is an interdependent world.

A legislature cannot be effective while suffering from public scorn.

I pride myself on being courteous to people, and trying to fashion good relations.

I've never been much given to little social cliques.

I'm supremely uninterested as to what is written in many of the newspapers.

I'm not psychic. I cannot know what is in the mind of particular public figures.

One consistent thing in an otherwise inconsistent career is that I've always been passionate about parliament.