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.

This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.

You wouldn't be human if you didn't feel both a sense of responsibility and a deep sadness for those who have lost their lives.

But I am an optimist about Britain; and the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not that the optimist believes the world is wonderful and the pessimist believes it's beset by challenges; the difference is the pessimist believes we will be defeated by them; the optimist thinks the challenges can be overcome.

One thing, change, is what everyone says. The question is, what type of change? What's the right change to produce a different outcome for the people left behind by globalization?

I think the single most important political distinction today is actually between open-minded versus closed-minded, and that's why I think this crosses the boundaries of traditional - center-right and center-left have much more in common with each other right now than the right does with the center-right, and the left does with the center-left.

But the world is ever more interdependent. Stock markets and economies rise and fall together. Confidence is the key to prosperity. Insecurity spreads like contagion. So people crave stability and order.