Having served in eleven Parliaments, it would be difficult to describe this as a maiden speech. It would be like Elizabeth Taylor appearing at her next wedding in a white gown.

I've made every mistake - but mistakes are how you learn.

I don't want to commit myself in advocating a definite republican constitution which will get bogged down with the question of who would elect the President and when.

The Tory party is the enemy of democracy.

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.

I think democracy is not a destination. I don't think socialism is a railway station and if we catch the right train with the right driver, we'll get there. I think it's a way of thinking about things and every generation has to do it again.

Christians believe that God created man, and humanists believe that man invented God. But whichever way you look at it, we're brothers and sisters. Either we're brothers and sisters because we're children of God, or because we've banded together to invent God. So the ethics of the humanist and the ethics of some Christians are very similar. And we don't want to create divisions between humanists and Liberation Theologians, any more than we want between the New Worker and the Trots. It's not helpful.