John Gummer just did not have the political clout or credibility to rally the troops. I had appointed him as a sort of nightwatchman, but he seemed to have to sleep on the job.

Hope is no basis for a defense policy.

Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them.

If in the 1930s nuclear weapons had been invented and the Allies had been faced by Nazi SS20s and Backfire Bombers, would it then have been morally right to have handed Hitler control of one of the most terrible weapons man has ever made? Would not that have been the one way to ensure that the thousand year Reich became exactly that? Would not unilateralism have given to Hitler the world domination he sought?

I will not change just to court popularity.

It is your tax which pays for public spending. The government have no money of their own. There is only taxpayers' money.

In those days one advantage of being a woman was that there was a basic courtesy towards us on which we could draw - something which today's feminists have largely dissipated.