The Establishment decided Thatcher's ideas were safer with a strong Blair government than with a weak Major government. We are given all these personalities to choose between to disguise the fact that the policies are the same.

If democracy is destroyed in Britain, it will be not the communists, Trotskyists or subversives but this House which threw it away. The rights that are entrusted to us are not for us to give away. Even if I agree with everything that is proposed, I cannot hand away powers lent to me for five years by the people of Chesterfield. I just could not do it. It would be theft of public rights.

Mandela didn't end Apartheid in South Africa, the poor guy was in jail for 27 years, it was the African people that ended it but he was a symbol of their struggle. Or Gandhi in India, Gandhi was a great believer in non-violence and he was in and out of jail, but India became free. I think it's better to look at what people can do collectively and that's why it's so important to encourage them.

There may be a legal obligation to obey, but there will be no moral obligation to obey. When it comes to history, it will be the people who broke the law for freedom who will be remembered and honoured.

I think if journalists were responsible for international policy we'd have a nuclear war every week.

It is government policy to phase out subsidies to nationalised industries. In line with this, the government hopes that the coal industry will be able to operate without the need for assistance apart from social grants.

We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.