At the next election he'll offer the British public an alternative that provides weight and substance and seriousness in a political debate that is, frankly, increasingly obsessed with modishness and flim-flam.

I can establish the expectation of retributive justice. Have we done that? No.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

I've had much nastier things said about me in the British press than in the Bosnian press.

I can create institutions, but I can't rewrite the chips in people's heads.

My second job has been to try to use my power to create institutions of a modern state that could enter the European Union, and there was very little time. The door was closing, and I wanted to get Bosnia through before it shut.

We have to make their livelihoods viable, get them the proper prices for their produce, try and make them stay rather than sell their property and leave again.