We are not prepared to consider special category status for certain groups of people serving sentences for crime. Crime is crime is crime, it is not political

Life in a free society...is heaven on earth to life in a socialist society such as Russia.

Europe is... a monument to the vanity of individuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure.

All the general propositions favouring freedom I had .. imbibed at my father's knee or acquired by candle-end reading of Burke and Hayek...

We must not fall into the trap of projecting our own morality onto the Soviet leaders. They do not share our aspirations, they are not constrained by our ethics, they always consider themselves exempt from the rules that bind other states.

But because we accept the sanctity of life, the responsibility that comes with freedom and the supreme sacrifice of Christ expressed so well in the hymn: 'When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died. My richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride.'

The fact that seasoned politicians can say such ridiculous things - and get away with it - illustrates the degree to which the new dogma... has swept through the left-of-centre governing classes.