Middle class Labour leaders are recaptured by the establishment when they die.

I try not to make political arguments personal. It doesn't help and it switches a lot of people off. The real questions: Will we have peace? Will we have justice? Will we have pensions? Will we have free education? Will we have public services? .... those are the sort of things which interest me. I don't think that having a go at individuals really helps get your point across apart from anything else.

It would be as unthinkable to try to construct the Labour Party without Marx as it would to be to establish university faculties of astronomy,anthropology or psychology without permitting the study of Copernicus, Darwin or Freud, and still expect such faculties to be taken seriously

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.

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

I think very often the boat-rockers turn out to be the people who are building the craft

The people who have sacrificed their view in order to get to the top have very often left no footprints in the sands of time.