Experience is the only real teacher and if you keep a diary you get three bites at educating yourself - when it happens, when you write it down, and when you reread it and realise you were wrong. Making mistakes is part of life. The only things I would feel ashamed of would be if I had said things I hadn't believed in order to get on. Some politicians do do that.

The Tory party is the enemy of democracy.

There is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.

There is good and bad in all of us and the Church uses the idea of original sin to control us by saying that, if we do not obey the bishops, we will rot in Hell.

Undoubtedly the war with Iraq was a tragedy. I think it was also a crime.

If I rescued a child from drowning, the press would no doubt headline the story: 'Benn grabs child

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