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

Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.

I think conspiracy theories have gotten more and more close to the mainstream because what you've got is a fragmentation of the media, where the media becomes much more polarized today, left and right.

Genetic modification has many different areas, for example in medicine, and Britain is at the leading edge of this new technology. I don't know, but people tell me, it could indeed by the leading science of the 21st century. All I say to people is: 'Just keep an open mind and let us proceed according to genuine scientific evidence.'

For me, 9/11 was a game changer. It altered my perception of the security threat we faced. I took the position that Britain should be shoulder to shoulder with the U.S. It was a big decision; I didn't take it lightly, or in ignorance of its consequences. It's a big commitment for a country to give, but I believed it was the right thing to do.

We fall for... the theories of betrayal very easily, and one of the things that's always depressed me about the left, ever since I started in politics, is their ability to imbibe the propaganda of the right and regurgitate it to the left.

I 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.