There was only one punch. Tony Blair rang me and he said 'Are you OK?' and I said 'Yes', and he said 'Well, what happened?' and I said 'I was just carrying out your orders. You told us to connect with the electorate, so I did.

The only break I ever took was to eat. That's all I did. Work, and then quickly eat something. It became my main pleasure, having access to my comfort food.

I'm going to introduce you to a revolutionary thought - you can go slower and get there quicker. And that's to do with flow. As soon as you made it two lanes and brought in the 70 (mph) and 50 (mph), you got there quicker. It meant the flow of the traffic was better, there were less accidents, less deaths, I think that's an important factor.

I don't get a fair whack, I don't pursue vendettas or punch people on the nose.

What we are beginning to witness is a whole new set of rules for economics, based on rationing resources.

There is progress taking place, growth is better. We're only talking about two years there.

In a sense, what we do with the regional development agencies is to give them resources to look at the deficiencies in the economy in the regional areas, so they can address themselves to that.