Two negatives don't make a positive, any more than two half-wits make a wit.

People who are in politics to be right all the time would be better off taking up fly-fishing. It's less dangerous. Politics that is not applied in the real world and doesn't address the real challenges and paradoxes and agonies is a hobby.

Is Tony Blair of the Labour party? The answer to that is profoundly 'yes', but that is not how, sentimentally, he is regarded in the Labour movement generally.

I want to retire at 50. I want to play cricket in the summer and geriatric football in the winter, and sing in the choir.

I'm prepared to take advice on leisure from Prince Philip. He's a world expert on leisure. He's been practicing it for most of his adult life.

Political renegades always start their career of treachery as 'the best men of all parties' and end up in the Tory knackery.

New!Loyalty is a fine quality, but in excess it fills political graveyards.