My dad was a militant atheist, or is a militant atheist. My mum was sort of bought up in a religious family because she was a Protestant from Ireland but wasn't especially religious.

The first big choice: a government with the strength to deliver stability, or a government that takes the country back to boom and bust.

I have never pretended to be a great House of Commons man, but I pay the House the greatest compliment I can by saying that, from first to last, I never stopped fearing it.

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

The threat today is not that of the 1930s. It's not big powers going to war with each other. The ravages which fundamentalist political ideology inflicted on the 20th century are memories. The Cold war is over. Europe is at peace, if not always diplomatically.

What people should understand is that I adore the Labour party.

We expected, I expected to find actual usable, chemical or biological weapons after we entered Iraq.