My view is that you still, in order to win from the Labour perspective, have to have a strong alliance with business as well as the unions. You have got to be very much in the centre ground on things like public sector reform.

Our ultimate weapon is not our guns but our beliefs ... Ours are not Western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit and anywhere, any time, ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same. Freedom not tyranny. Democracy not dictatorship. The rule of law not the rule of the secret police. The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defence and our first line of attack.

I think it's important for people like me to evaluate and reevaluate.

People always think American politics is very different, but usually it is a predictor of what happens in the politics elsewhere.

Do I know I'm right? Judgements aren't the same as facts. Instinct is not science. I'm like any other human being as fallible and as capable of being wrong. I only know what I believe.

I haven't got the time to sit here arguing with someone whose idea of a coherent foreign policy is what comes up in Google when you type in peace!

Obviously it is right that the Afghans take responsibility for their own future in the end, but they need to know and feel that we are there as partners for them if they are prepared to make the necessary changes. But we should be in no doubt as to why we are in Afghanistan. We ended up there because terrorism hatched there erupted thousands of miles away in New York on Sept. 11.