What I don't know is whether there is a way politically that you can beat away these, some of these populist movements because in the end I don't think they really do provide answers. They ride the anger. But they don't really have the answers. Or whether this is an experiment we're just going to have to go through first.

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.

But in terms of how people live together, how we minimize the prospects of conflict and maximize the prospects of peace, the place of religion in our society today is essential.

Fifteen years ago, if you said business will help save the environment people would have laughed at you. Today, I believe that is a serious proposition.

The first rule in politics is that there are no rules, at least not in the sense of inevitable defeats or inevitable victories. If you have the right policy and the right strategy, you always have a chance of winning. Without them, you can lose no matter how certain the victory seems.

In Downing Street they called me 'Boss'. Civil servants would always call me 'Prime Minister'.

We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years-contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence-Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.