A consensus politician is someone who does something that he doesn't believe is right because it keeps people quiet when he does it.

Of course there are regrets. I shall regret always that I found my own authentic voice in politics. I was too conservative, too conventional. Too safe, too often. Too defensive. Too reactive. Later, too often on the back foot.

I mean if you have ever found a politician who says, 'No, no, I would do everything exactly as I did,' then you can tell when he is lying because his lips are moving.

If you look at things that really affect people's lives - sport, the arts, charities - they were always at the back of the queue for government money - health, social security, defence, pensions were all way ahead. And each of those areas - sports, the arts, the lottery - got relatively petty cash from the government.

If is a very big preposition.

Neil Kinnock's speeches go on for so long because he has nothing to say and so he has no way of knowing when he's finished saying it.

I inherited a sick economy and passed on a sound one. But one abiding regret for me is that, in between, I did not have the resources to put in place the educational and social changes about which I cared to much; I made only a beginning, and it was not enough.