To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.

I calculate that I was responsible for proposing the elevation to the Lords of some 214 of its present numbers.

Failure? The possibilities do not exist.

I think our support for the EEC has been very half-hearted. You really cannot join any group of nations and spend all your time criticising it. The EEC is free Europe getting together. Had we had some vision like that after the first world war , we might never had the second ... my son does not have to go and fight as his father had to fight. Surely that is the most valuable thing of all, the reason for keeping Europe together.

People from my sort of background needed Grammar schools to compete with children from privileged homes like Shirley Williams and Anthony Wedgwood Benn.

There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors... I mean it.

I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air.