When you've spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment, it's exciting to have a real crisis on your hands.

We speak of peace, yes, but whose peace? Poland's? Bulgaria's? The peace of the grave?

The Nuremburg trials were attacked at the time as 'victor's justice'. And this is precisely what they were - and were intended to be.

When in August 1793 a British delegation showed their hosts a terrestrial globe, it turned into a diplomatic incident, for the Chinese were furious to see that their empire covered so little of it. For centuries the Chinese had thought of themselves as 'The Middle Kingdom', that is the centre of the civilized world. To see otherwise was a shock.

People constantly requesting government intervention are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.

(Not) even the US can impose peace: it has to be genuinely accepted by both parties involved.

We are very fortunate to have someone else's weapons stationed on our soil, to fight those targeted on us.