The most effective check and balance on government has been an independent press which maintains its credibility by ensuring that its criticism is balanced and based on fact – based indeed on solid journalistic work.

When politicians offer you something for nothing, or something that sounds too good to be true, it's always worth taking a careful second look.

Nobody looks at opinion polls with more attention than politicians, but of course you've got to remember that a single poll is a snapshot in time.

I'm sick of the cover-ups, I'm sick of the lies, and so are the bloody veterans, that come out daily of the department's mouth.

Broadcasters or politicians or writers who think that they are respecting Struggle Street, the battlers, by dumbing things down into one-line sound bites are not respecting them, they are treating them with contempt. It's our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them.

Are not the gays who seek the right to marry, to formalise their commitment to each other, holding up a mirror to heterosexuals who are marrying less frequently and divorcing more often?

There is a tendency to try to dumb everything down and turn everything into a one-paragraph press release or even less, just a slogan.