I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.

Surely we have the wit and will to develop economically without despoiling the very environment we depend upon

There's a huge wave of anti-establishment feeling. There's an enormous amount of anger. And it's collapsing governments and political movements across the world right now.

We need to develop the new green industrial revolution that develops the new technologies that can confront and overcome the challenge of climate change; and that above all can show us not that we can avoid changing our behaviour but we can change it in a way that is environmentally sustainable.

I think the people like myself who are in the center ground of politics and who think that center left and center right can cooperate and work together. Who don't like this sort of insurgent populism because we think it's not really going to deliver for the people, I think there's a big responsibility on us in the center to get our act together. And to work out radical but serious solutions to the problems people face.

It's not a burning ambition for me to make sure that David Beckham earns less money.

There are big questions about the sort of skills you need in modern government today. You put politicians in charge of billions of dollars with absolutely no training and very little support system around them. It's an extraordinary thing.