My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.

In the north east, there, they have had quite a bit of government offices moving in. It’s not a new policy.

Yet what you need is not marches, demonstrations, rallies or wide associations, all of them are important. What you need is direct action. The sooner people understand that, the sooner we’ll begin to change things.

Why can’t we, with a more intelligent policy, actually have houses that are affordable, built at higher densities than they are at the moment and built on brownfield sites.

The present system of protecting NHS patients was a bit of a shambles.

How horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.

The dreadful truth is that when people come to see their MP they have run out of better ideas.

It’s moving in the right direction. It was in decline under the previous administration.

You may see the emergence of a new political party from the body of the trade union movement which represents a very clear-cut socialist alternative policy and which gives expression to the views of the...

You go down some street – no doubt it’s there, and we have to do something about it, and our programmes are designed to do that – but if that’s a picture of Newcastle, it’s...

I don’t think we can go into important local elections next year… with Tony Blair as leader and expect to keep many of the councillors we’ve got now.

I believe it is peace for our time… peace with honour.

I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis.

Refurbishing I’ve done in the first three years and I’m still giving housing money, of course, to the north.

The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall.

If you find an Australian indoors, it’s a fair bet that he will have a glass in his hand.