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

I don't believe in the hereditary principle in the House of Lords. Imagine going to the dentist, sitting in the chair and he says, 'I'm not a dentist myself, but my father was a dentist and his father before him. Now, open wide!

I met somebody once who said, "I'm a lapsed-atheist" by what he meant was, "I don't believe in God but the older I get the more I realise there is a spirituality in everybody that has to be cherished and nourished." That made a lot of sense to me.

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

Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself.

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 ever I left the House of Commons it would be because I wanted to spend more time on politics.