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.

Major international interventions are doomed unless the US is directly or indirectly involved. But if American politicians, officials and servicemen are to be put at risk of arrest and prosecution, the United States will be most reluctant to act in order to curb aggression or prevent genocide. So the effect of the court may well be to diminish, not increase, the numbers of (in the words of the UN Secretary General) 'innocents of distant wars and conflicts'.

You and I come by road or rail, but economists travel on infrastructure.

When will Labour learn that you cannot build Jerusalem in Brussels.

You can present people with ideas they may come to believe in, and as a result of them they will act, if they have the opportunities. Presenting people with opportunities is part of what politics is about.

What is right for the family is right for Britain.

We simply cannot delegate the exercise of mercy and generosity to others.