Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.

In the Conservative Party we have no truck with outmoded Marxist doctrine about class warfare. For us it is not who you are, who your family is or where you come from that matters, but what you are and what you can do for your country that counts.

When hecklers stand up, I get a mental jump for joy. It gives me something to get my teeth into - and the audiences love it.

We Conservatives hate unemployment.

What really gets me is this - it's very ironic that those who are most critical of extra tax are those who are most vociferous in demanding extra expenditure. What gets me even more is that having demanded that extra expenditure they are not prepared to face the consequences of their own action and stand by the necessity to get the tax to pay for it. I wish some of them had a bit more guts and courage than they have.

I am not hard - I'm frightfully soft. But I will not be hounded

Bribing regimes to comply with requirements which they should have acknowledged in the first place is not a process that appeals to me.