We are paying a heavy political price for 20 years in which, as a party, we have played down our criticism of capitalism and soft-peddled our advocacy of socialism

I do not share the general view that market forces are the basis of personal liberty.

It's lovely to be old. I've got age, experience and zero personal ambition. No body could corrupt me by anything: possibly a job in the government, a peerage, a quango, I don't want any of it.

The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much.

I'm a democrat - I don't support Bush, I don't support Blair, I don't support Bin Laden.

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.

When I think of Cool Britannia I think of old people dying of hypothermia.