In my view what you can’t argue for is a system that is neither decisive nor proportional and can be indecisive and disproportionate at the same time.

It’s really necessary for the United States to continue to give strong leadership to the Middle East peace process, supported by European countries at the same time.

There’s only one growth strategy: work hard.

The total economy of Latin America is bigger than China.

People know that you can’t spend more than you have.

Very few conflicts in the history of the world have been satisfactorily concluded according to a published timetable, because you lose all flexibility in dealing with your opponents.

It must be quite rare for an interviewer to be interviewed.

Iran’s continued, widespread persecution of ethnic minorities, human rights defenders and political prisoners is a disgrace and stands as a shameful indictment of Iran’s leaders.

People feel that the EU is a one-way process, a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided by the EU. That needs to change.

Obviously a Conservative government will always leave taxes lower than they have been under Labour. Those things go with the territory of the Conservative Party.

We have to face the reality of climate change. It is arguably the biggest threat we are facing today.

Yes, I’ve never inherited a penny!

Remember the No campaign is Conservative people, Labour people, people of no party.

A generation of children has been betrayed.

People feel that in too many ways the EU is something that is done to them, not something over which they have a say.

You have to have as many defences in place as you possibly can. But even then of course – and it’s important to stress this – you cannot guarantee being able to prevent every attack...

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...

Spending only what the country can afford, rewarding savings, encouraging independence, supporting marriage: people know that these things are common sense.

At a time of such hope and optimism in the Middle East, we cannot let the Libyan government violate every principle of international law and human rights with impunity.

As far as I’m aware, everybody in the shadow cabinet accepts that there’s a compelling case on climate change and a strong scientific case.

Someone once claimed I was not really a Yorkshireman!

I don’t deny that there are problems in the intelligence world, but I would argue that in the UK we try to uphold the highest standards in the world.

Turning away Turkey from the EU would be a great, long-term – a century-long – error by Europe.

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...

The world is not going into concentric blocs of power. It is actually going into a diffusion of power with more centres of decision-making than ever in human civilisation. That requires you to place yourself...

Where defining foreign policy as ‘ethical’ went wrong was that it implied that all decisions would be exclusive in every respect of any dealings with unethical regimes.

To the hard-working people who set a little bit aside each month, to provide for their children, or to fund their own retirement, I say: you should be rewarded not punished.

I don’t think a wise thing at this moment is for Israel to launch a military attack on Iran.

The message I take all round the world is Britain is open for business.

Inspiring scenes of people taking the future of their countries into their own hands will ignite greater demands for good governance and political reform elsewhere in the world, including in Asia and in Africa.

We hope that the long darkness through which the Burmese people have lived may now be coming to an end.

Labour have been listening for too long to the so-called experts who think that competition is a dirty word and that communicating facts to our children is elitist.

The EU is not a country and it’s not going to become a country, in my view, now or ever in the future. It is a group of countries working together.

You can gain in your effectiveness as a politician from a wide acquaintance with the world and from a degree of independence that having some outside interests gives.

The EU should be concentrated on adapting to globalisation and global competitiveness, not building more powerful centralised institutions in Brussels.

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

You can see over time whether people are prepared to differ or not.

Governments that use violence to stop democratic development will not earn themselves respite forever. They will pay an increasingly high price for actions which they can no longer hide from the world with ease, and...

When you reduce taxes on higher earners it’s vital to be reducing them on lower earning people as well so the nation shares in the approach.

We’re not getting involved in terms of sending ground forces into Libya. Let’s be clear about that. And indeed the UN Resolution forbids that. It says no foreign occupation of any part of Libya.

Ambition is best tempered with self-knowledge!

I know people are fickle.

To the teacher weighed down with paperwork, I say: you’ve been messed around too often. You came into teaching to spend your time teaching children not filling in forms.

If some of the people who write about mojo came with me for a week, they would drop dead on their feet.

I still agree with the invasion of Iraq. I don’t agree with most of the decisions that accompanied it.

Syria should not belong to one family, to one coterie, or to one party. It belongs to all the people of Syria equally, in all their religious and ethnic diversity.

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,...

If there’s one thing above all that sets me apart from Tony Blair it is this – I am not embarrassed to articulate the instincts of the British people.

You do have to do business with and to try to influence people you don’t agree with, or find disagreeable, so it’s important to stress that balance.

I don’t think my principles change. I think the way in which you apply those principles to modern society changes.