It would actually be quite nice if the American ambassador in Britain could pay the [congestion] charge that everybody else is paying and not actually try and skive out of it like some chiselling little crook.

Working with the Jewish community is essential to me and what I stand for. I do explicitly see Jewish people as a people - not either a religion or an ethnicity but a people. The Tories take Jewish London for granted. I will not.

I think George Bush is the most corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties. He is not the legitimate president. This really is a completely unsupportable government and I look forward to it being overthrown as much as I looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown.

To tackle climate change you don't have to reduce your quality of life, but you do have to change the way you live

The world is run by monsters and you have to deal with them. Some of them run countries, some of them run banks, some of them run news corporations.

Every budget I have ever prepared has been balanced.

I've always been a workaholic. I reckon, on average, I've had less than one day a year off in my working career.