What is obviously unfair is that the half of the population that doesn't go to university that's often on lower incomes pays more taxes in order to send other people to university, without them, you know, contributing.

I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour, but sometimes it is the price of leadership and the cost of conviction.

I feel like everyone else in this country today. I am utterly devastated.

You've got problems in Central Asia. And you've got problems within our own communities back home. So if we end up saying, look, this has nothing to do with Islam or it's got no connection with that broader question, then we look, frankly, as if we're in denial about the problem. And the interesting thing in the Middle East is that they have absolutely no problem there in identifying that as Islamist extremism and calling it that.

I cannot think of any circumstances in which a government can go to war without the support of parliament.

The spread of freedom is the best security for the free.

It [the intelligence service] concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population; and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability.