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.'

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 world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power.

Do I know I'm right? Judgements aren't the same as facts. Instinct is not science. I'm like any other human being as fallible and as capable of being wrong. I only know what I believe.

So much of politics is about the daily grind of political business: the people to see, the myriad different facets of government, the remorseless agenda of this part of the media or that.

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.

Real integrity means an answer. It doesn't just mean - it doesn't mean riding the anger. And this is very difficult to do.