I've got four lovely children, ten lovely grandchildren, and I left parliament to devote more time to politics, and I think that what is really going on in Britain is a growing sense of alienation. People don't feel anyone listens to them.

Encouragement is the most important thing in the world for young people, rather than league tables, which demoralise everyone.

The one thing that is absolutely essential is that there shouldn't be any governmental control [of the media] directly or indirectly.

The Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it - a bit like Christians in the Church of England.

Marxism is now a world faith and must be allowed to enter into a continuous dialogue with other world faiths, including religious faiths

If you're going to make sense of politics you have to have a historical perspective and also recognise that you have to work with people you don't agree with.

Cabinet members are soon overwhelmed by the insistent demands of running their departments. On the whole, a period in high office consumers intellectual capital; it does not create it....The less ministers know at the outset, the more dependent they are on the only sources of available knowledge; the permanent officials.