An MP is the only job where you have 70,000 employers, and only one employee.

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.

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.

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

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

A faith is something you die for; a doctrine is something you kill for; there is all the difference in the world.

I opposed the Suez war, I opposed the Falklands war. I opposed the Libyan bombing and I opposed the Gulf war and I never believed that any of those principled arguments lost a single vote - indeed, I think they gained support though that was not why you did it. What has been lacking in Labour politics over a long period is a principled stand