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.
Tony BlairI happen to think it's the politics that makes you electable, but the reason for that is politicians sometimes talk about electability as if it's just a matter of conning the public. Actually, it's a matter of persuading the public, and in my experience, usually, the public gets it right.
Tony BlairIf you've got communities that feel they've been left behind, if you've got - as you do in Britain at the moment, you have communities that believe they're being changed by immigration, that they don't have job opportunities, and that they're disregarded and that they don't - they've got no stake in a future which embraces globalization, you've got to address that issue.
Tony BlairSome may belittle politics, but we know - who are engaged in it - that it is where people stand tall. And, although I know it has its many harsh contentions, it is still the arena that sets the heart beating a little faster. And if it is, on occasions, the place of low skulduggery, it is more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes.
Tony Blair