Cheats, liars and criminals may resist every blandishment while respectable gentlemen have been moved to appalling treasons by watery cabbage in a departmental canteen.

You can't make war against terror. Terror is a technique of battle. It's a tactic that has been employed since time immemorial. You can conduct clandestine action against terrorists, and that must be done.

I think the greatest single enemy is the misuse of information, the perversion of truth in the hands of terribly skillful people.

I once heard someone say morality was method. Do you hold with that? I suppose you wouldn't. You would say that morality was vested in the aim, I expect. Difficult to know what one's aims are, that's the trouble, specially if you're British.

As our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way.

Smiley was soaked to the skin and God as a punishment had removed all taxis from the face of London.

It was a charming fantasy of romantics that the spies would stop spying, that political conflict would end and politicians would tell the truth. Unfortunately that has not been the case.