The people of Britain want a Home Secretary who will give them back their streets. They want a Home Secretary who will speak up for the victim, not the criminal.

When a Cabinet Minister who is sacked for telling lies is re-appointed, in the face of every constitutional convention, only for the same man to be sacked again from the same Cabinet for the same offence by the same Prime Minister – no wonder the public are cynical about politics.

I'm not, nor is anybody I know in government part of a nasty right wing clique.

I think the way things have been left after Iraq is that people won't believe the Government of the day, so they have to know that lessons have been learnt and that all political parties and people, whether they were for or against the invasion of Iraq, have learnt lessons.

It makes life very simple actually. You could be giving a TV interview in howling gale and it no longer matters.

I know people are fickle.

We are not directly involved in Syria. But we will be working with our partners in the European Union and at the United Nations to see if we can persuade the Syrian authorities to go, as I say, more in that direction of respect for democracy and human rights.