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I Actually Did Trouble To Read Marx First Hand. I Found It Illuminating In So Many Ways; In Particular, My Perception Of The Relationship Between People And The Society In Which They Live Was Irreversibly Altered.

-Tony Blair

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I Actually Did Trouble

Tony Blair

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I Actually Did Trouble To Read Marx First Hand. I Found It Illuminating In So Many Ways; In Particular, My Perception Of The Relationship Between People And The Society In Which They Live Was Irreversibly Altered.

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The Kaleidoscope Has Been Shaken. The Pieces Are In Flux. Soon They Will Settle Again. Before They Do, Let Us Re-order This World Around Us.

I Think The Journey For A Politician Goes From Wanting To Please All The People All The Time, To A Political Leader That Realises In The End His Responsibility Is To Decide. And When He Decides, He Divides.

There's A Deep Affection And Respect For The Queen And The Monarchy In The U.k. But Diana Was An Extraordinary, Iconic Figure And Her Death Sparked A Fierce Reaction, Part Grief And Part Anger At Her Being Taken Away. It Was Very Fraught.

Our Determination To Defend Our Values And Way Of Life Is Greater Than Their (terrorists) Determination To Cause Death And Destruction To Innocent People In A Desire To Impose Extremism Upon The World.

Stirring Is Ok. It Just Depends What Happens In The End.

There Is Nothing Like Waking Up At Six In The Morning And Changing A Baby's Nappy To Bring You Face To Face With Life's Reality.

I'm Afraid That's In The Nature Of Modern Politics - It's As Much Conducted By Abuse As Argument.

I Believe The Bicentenary Offers Us A Chance Not Just To Say How Profoundly Shameful The Slave Trade Was - How We Condemn Its Existence Utterly And Praise Those Who Fought For Its Abolition - But Also To Express Our Deep Sorrow That It Could Ever Have Happened And Rejoice At The Better Times We Live In Today.

The Great Advantage Of The Lib Dems Is Precisely That No-one Knows What They Stand For.

If There Is One Thing Britain Should Learn From The Last 50 Years, It Is This: Europe Can Only Get More Important For Us.

My Office Is On Twitter. I Don't Tweet Myself - At Least, Not Intentionally, But I Probably Should Do.

The Fear Of Missing Out Means That Today’s Media, More Than Ever Before, Hunts In A Pack. In These Modes It Is Like A Feral Beast, Just Tearing People And Reputations To Bits. But No-one Dares Miss Out.

I'm Not Prepared To Have Someone Tell Me There Is Only One View Of What Europe Is. Europe Isn't Owned By Any Of Them, Europe Is Owned By All Of Us.

In April 1991, After The Gulf War, Iraq Was Given 15 Days To Provide A Full And Final Declaration Of All Its Wmd.

We Know The Problems, And We Know The Solution: Sustainable Development. The Issue Is The Political Will.

You've Got To Listen But You've Also Got To Lead.

Our Aim Is Not Just An Educated Nation But An Intelligent One

This Mass Terrorism Is The New Evil In Our World Today

For Me, 9/11 Was A Game Changer. It Altered My Perception Of The Security Threat We Faced. I Took The Position That Britain Should Be Shoulder To Shoulder With The U.s. It Was A Big Decision; I Didn't Take It Lightly, Or In Ignorance Of Its Consequences. It's A Big Commitment For A Country To Give, But I Believed It Was The Right Thing To Do.

The Socialism Of Centralised State Control Of Industry And Production, Is Dead. It Misunderstood The Nature And Development Of A Modern Market Economy. It Failed To Recognise That The State And Public Sector Can Become A Vested Interest Capable Of Oppression As Much As The Vested Interests Of Wealth And Capital. It Was Based On A False View Of Class That Became Too Rigid To Explain Or Illuminate The Nature Of Class Division Today.

There Are Two Outstanding Issues In Democratic Politics These Days. One Is The Relationship With The Media, Which Is Now 24/7, And Operates With A Completely Different Intensity Than Even 15 Or 20 Years Ago. How Do We Have A Proper Conversation Between Leaders And Country When It's Moderated Sometimes In A Very Partisan And Inflammatory Way? And The Second Thing Is The Effectiveness Of Our Democracy. How Do We Get The Right Gene And Talent Pool In Politics?

The Moment You Stigmatize A Whole Group Of People - For Example, Muslims - Then, Obviously, You Make The Decent, Law-abiding Muslims Feel As If They're Under Threat In Some Way Or That Their Legitimacy, As Members Or Citizens Of Society, Is Brought Into Question.

Surely We Have The Wit And Will To Develop Economically Without Despoiling The Very Environment We Depend Upon

I Do Not Want To End Up With An American Style Of Politics, With Us Going Out There Beating Our Chest About Our Faith. Politics And Religion - It Is Not That They Do Not Have A Lot In Common, But If [religion] Ends Up Being Used In The Political Process, I Think That Is A Bit Unhealthy.

Our Ultimate Weapon Is Not Our Guns But Our Beliefs ... Ours Are Not Western Values. They Are The Universal Values Of The Human Spirit And Anywhere, Any Time, Ordinary People Are Given The Chance To Choose, The Choice Is The Same. Freedom Not Tyranny. Democracy Not Dictatorship. The Rule Of Law Not The Rule Of The Secret Police. The Spread Of Freedom Is The Best Security For The Free. It Is Our Last Line Of Defence And Our First Line Of Attack.

All The Evidence Here, For Example, In Britain, Is That Migrants, Particularly From The Rest Of Europe, Who Come Here Contribute Far More In Taxes.

The Appalling Details Of The Campaign Of Intimidation - Which Include Grave-robbing - Show The Depths To Which The Animal Extremists Are Prepared To Stoop.

What We Also Know Is We Haven't Found Them [weapons Of Mass Destruction] In Iraq - Now Let The Survey Group Complete Its Work And Give Us The Report... They Will Not Report That There Was No Threat From Saddam, I Don't Believe.

Mass Destruction

Some May Belittle Politics, But We Know - Who Are Engaged In It - That It Is Where People Stand Tall. And, Although I Know It Has Its Many Harsh Contentions, It Is Still The Arena That Sets The Heart Beating A Little Faster. And If It Is, On Occasions, The Place Of Low Skulduggery, It Is More Often The Place For The Pursuit Of Noble Causes.

The 21st Century Will Not Be About The Battle Between Capitalism And Socialism But Between The Forces Of Progress And The Forces Of Conservatism.

If You Don't See The Internet As An Opportunity, It Will Become A Threat. In Two Or Three Year's Time, The Internet Will Become As Commonplace In The Office As The Telephone.

I Want To See A Publicly-owned Railway, Publicly Accountable.

I'm One Of These People That, Once You Have Had Your Election And You Have Elected Your Candidate, Let's See What Actually Happens.

I Am Absolutely Delighted To Give My Full Support To Gordon As The Next Leader Of The Labour Party And As Prime Minister And To Endorse Him Fully.

There Are Solutions That Are Proper, But They Require The Painstaking And Difficult Work Of Building Alliances And Also Being Prepared To Analyze The Problem Realistically. And Exactly The Same Thing Is Going On My Side Of The Atlantic As Is Going On Your Side Of The Atlantic.

It Is Not An Arrogant Government That Chooses Priorities, It's An Irresponsible Government That Fails To Choose.

I May Find Saddam Hussein's Regime Abhorrent - Any Normal Person Would - But The Survival Of It Is In His Hands.

I Hope That People Know Me Well Enough And Realise That I Would Never Do Anything To Harm The Country Or Anything Improper. I Never Have. I Think Most People Who Have Dealt With Me Think I Am A Pretty Straight Sort Of A Guy.

I Don't Concede It At All That The Intelligence At The Time Was Wrong.

Terrorism Brings The Reprisal; The Reprisal Brings The Additional Hatred; The Additional Hatred Breeds The Additional Terrorism, And So On.

The Understanding Which Has Driven New Labour's Reform Is To Put The Individual Citizen - The Patient, The Parent, The Pupil, The Law Abiding Citizen - At The Centre Of Each Public Service, With The Service Reformed To Meet Their Individual Requirements

We Expected, I Expected To Find Actual Usable, Chemical Or Biological Weapons After We Entered Iraq. But I Have To Accept, As The Months Have Passed, It Seems Increasingly Clear That At The Time Of Invasion, Saddam Did Not Have Stockpiles Of Chemical Or Biological Weapons Ready To Deploy.

Before People Crow About The Absence Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction, I Suggest They Wait A Bit.

Mass Destruction

Fanaticism Is Not A State Of Religion But A State Of Mind.

The Trouble Is Nowadays That Parts Of The Media Operate In A Very Partisan Way. There's No Point In Complaining About It, That's The Way It Is. But Let's Be Clear, A Lot Of It Is Driven By The Views Of A Pretty Small Number Of People, Rather Than A Normal Standard Of Journalism.

If We Are Wrong, We Will Have Destroyed A Threat That, At Its Least Is Responsible For Inhuman Carnage And Suffering. That Is Something I Am Confident History Will Forgive.

I Have Absolutely No Doubt At All That We Will Find Evidence Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction Programmes.

Mass Destruction

What People Should Understand Is That I Adore The Labour Party.

There Are Literally Thousands Of Sites. As I Was Told In Iraq, Information Is Coming In The Entire Time, But It Is Only Now That The Iraq Survey Group Has Been Put Together That A Dedicated Team Of People, Which Includes Former Un Inspectors, Scientists And Experts, Will Be Able To Go In And Do The Job Properly.

If You're Interested In Politics And You're Not Following It, Then It's A Little Bizarre.

The Free Enterprise System Has Not Failed; The Financial System Has Failed.

Free Enterprise

The World Is A Better Place With Saddam In Prison Not In Power.

My View Is That We're Entering Into A Situation Of Enormous Instability, Insecurity, Fragility.

If You've Got Communities That Feel They've Been Left Behind, If You've Got - As You Do In Britain At The Moment, You Have Communities That Believe They're Being Changed By Immigration, That They Don't Have Job Opportunities, And That They're Disregarded And That They Don't - They've Got No Stake In A Future Which Embraces Globalization, You've Got To Address That Issue.

Deportation Is A Decision Taken By The Home Secretary Under Statute, The New Grounds Will Include Fostering Hatred, Advocating Violence To Further A Person's Beliefs, Or Justifying Or Validating Such Violence.

Most Of The Problems Of Government Come From People Being Overwhelmed By The Size And Scale Of What They Have To Do.

My View Always Is That We Should Learn The Lessons, Both Of The Last Sort Of 50 Years Of Policy-making And It Is Possible To Get To A Foreign Policy That Is Engaged And Active Without Going Back To Where We Were In The Post-9/11 World.

Enough Of Talking: It Is Time Now To Do.

Our Party: New Labour. Our Mission: New Britain. New Labour New Britain.

The Jolt That Tony Blair Received 35,000ft Above The Pacific Ocean Was Not Normal Turbulence.

There Is No Doubt That The Time To Act Is Now. It Is Now That Timely Action Can Avert Disaster. It Is Now That With Foresight And Will Such Action Can Be Taken Without Disturbing The Essence Of Our Way Of Life, By Adjusting Behaviour Not Altering It Entirely.

What We Want To See Is The Development Of Human Rights And Greater Democracy, Not Just Because It Is Our System But Because We Think That's The Best Way That Economic And Political Development Go Hand In Hand.

Obviously It Is Right That The Afghans Take Responsibility For Their Own Future In The End, But They Need To Know And Feel That We Are There As Partners For Them If They Are Prepared To Make The Necessary Changes. But We Should Be In No Doubt As To Why We Are In Afghanistan. We Ended Up There Because Terrorism Hatched There Erupted Thousands Of Miles Away In New York On Sept. 11.

Any Parent Wants The Best For Their Children. I Am Not Going To Make A Choice For My Child On The Basis Of What Is The Politically Correct Thing To Do.

As The World Transforms, Moves Closer Together, Jobs Are Displaced, And The World Of Work Completely Changes The Way We Live, The Way We Think. As That Revolution Goes On Around Us, It Is Going To Pose Political Challenges Of Which Immigration Is One Very Obvious One, Which Are Going To Be Extremely Difficult To Deal With. But It's Like Free Trade. You Know, In The End, If We Go Protectionist, We'll Make A Mistake.

I Think Conspiracy Theories Have Gotten More And More Close To The Mainstream Because What You've Got Is A Fragmentation Of The Media, Where The Media Becomes Much More Polarized Today, Left And Right.

When My Parents Were Growing Up The World's Population Was Under Three Billion. During My Children's Lifetime, It Is Likely To Exceed Nine Billion. You Don't Need To Be An Expert To Realise That Sustainable Development Is Going To Become The Greatest Challenge We Face This Century

A Simple Way To Take Measure Of A Country Is To Look At How Many Want In.. And How Many Want Out.

I Am Not Sure That We Would Always Want 16-year-olds To Do All The Things They Can Do. I Am Afraid That I Do Not Agree With The Hon. Gentleman On The Voting Age. I Think That It Should Remain As It Is.

Choice Dependent On Wealth; Those Are The Tory Words.

Sometimes It Is Better To Lose And Do The Right Thing Than To Win And Do The Wrong Thing.

Well, We Definitely Need A Strong And Clear And Assertive America. That's For Sure. But You've Always Got To Build Alliances. And So It's Very Important That We Are Able To Build Those Alliances. And Where We Don't Do What In A Way To Extremists Want Us To Do, Which Is To Make This Into A Battle Between The West And Islam - It's Not. This Isn't A Clash Between Civilizations. It's About Whether The Values Of Tolerance And Respect For Difference Prevail.

The Thing Always Is To Go To Where People Really Are And What They're Really Feeling About Life.

Sovereignty Rests With Me As An English Mp And That's The Way It Will Stay.

I Cannot Think Of Any Circumstances In Which A Government Can Go To War Without The Support Of Parliament.

It Is Absurd To Say In Respect Of Any Intelligence That It Is Infallible, But If You Ask Me What I Believe, I Believe The Intelligence Was Correct, And I Think In The End We Will Have An Explanation.

Real Progress Cannot Be Measured By Money Alone. We Must Ensure That Economic Growth Contributes To Our Quality Of Life, Rather Than Degrading It

There Can Be No Freedom For Africa Without Justice; And No Justice Without Declaring War On Africa's Poverty, Disease And Famine With As Much Vehemence As We Remove The Tyrant And The Terrorist.

I Have Absolutely No Doubt In My Mind That The Intelligence Was Genuine.

The Art Of Leadership Is Saying No, Not Saying Yes. It Is Very Easy To Say Yes.

You've Got Problems In Central Asia. And You've Got Problems Within Our Own Communities Back Home. So If We End Up Saying, Look, This Has Nothing To Do With Islam Or It's Got No Connection With That Broader Question, Then We Look, Frankly, As If We're In Denial About The Problem. And The Interesting Thing In The Middle East Is That They Have Absolutely No Problem There In Identifying That As Islamist Extremism And Calling It That.

What Is True About (ex-iraq Survey Group Head) David Kay's Evidence, And This Is Something I Have To Accept, And Is One Of The Reasons Why I Think We Now Need A New Inquiry - It Is True David Kay Is Saying We Have Not Found Large Stockpiles Of Actual Weapons.

Education, Education, Education

Human Progress Has Never Been Shaped By Commentators, Complainers Or Cynics.

I Want My Son To Grow Up In A Place Where The People Are More Powerful Than The Government And Not The Other Way Around.

There Is No Doubt As To What Needs To Happen. There Has To Be A Complete Rejection Of The Type Of Terrorist Attacks Carried Out In India.

One Thing, Change, Is What Everyone Says. The Question Is, What Type Of Change? What's The Right Change To Produce A Different Outcome For The People Left Behind By Globalization?

Power Without Principle Is Barren, But Principle Without Power Is Futile. This Is A Party Of Government, And I Will Lead It As A Party Of Government.

If You Are Trying To Take A Difficult Decision And You're Weighing Up The Pros And Cons, You Have Frank Conversations. Everybody Knows This In Their Walk Of Life.

Now, Again, What The Center Ground Has Got To Do Is To Respond To People's Genuine Concerns And Fears.

Genuine Concern

Whatever The Dangers Of The Action We Take, The Dangers Of Inaction Are Far, Far Greater.

I Still Think The World Is Better Off And Safer Without Saddam Hussein.

I Think It Is Vitally Important To Study History. If We Are Going To Lead Britain Safely Into The Future, It Is Essential That We Understand Our Country's Historical Roots. If We Can Learn The Lessons Of The Past, We Will Be Able To Avoid Making Mistakes In The Future.

Values Unrelated To Modern Reality Are Not Just Electorally Hopeless, The Values Themselves Become Devalued. They Have No Purchase On The Real World.

One Of The Things That I've Been Doing Over The Past Few Years Is Reevaluating My Own Powers Of Political Analysis.

There Are Big Questions About The Sort Of Skills You Need In Modern Government Today. You Put Politicians In Charge Of Billions Of Dollars With Absolutely No Training And Very Little Support System Around Them. It's An Extraordinary Thing.

Support Systems

People Know Where I Stand In The Labour Party And What I Believe In.

How Do We Deal With Not Just The Acts Of Violence, But The Extremist Ideology That Lies Behind Them? Because Though The Numbers Of Fanatics That Go And Join And Kill For A Group Like Isis Are Measured In Tens Of Thousands, Those That Support The Wider Ideology, I'm Afraid, You Measure In Tens Of Millions Or More.

Climate Change Is The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge. It Is Now Plain That The Emission Of Greenhouse Gases, Associated With Industrialization And Economic Growth...is Causing Global Warming At A Rate That Is Unsustainable.

If There Are Further Steps To European Integration, The People Should Have Their Say At A General Election Or In A Referendum.

I Feel Like Everyone Else In This Country Today. I Am Utterly Devastated.

Ask Me My Three Main Priorities For Government, And I Tell You: Education, Education And Education.

I Haven't Got The Time To Sit Here Arguing With Someone Whose Idea Of A Coherent Foreign Policy Is What Comes Up In Google When You Type In Peace!

You Know, The Media And Politicians Are Always Gonna Be In A Bit Of Tension With One Another And Probably Most Of The Time That's Healthy And Indeed Even Creative. But It's Where - It's Really When News Organisations Are Used As Kind Of Instruments Of Politics That It Gets Tricky.

If We Take All This Actions And If It Turns Out Not Be True, We Have Reduced Pollution And Have Better Ways To Live, The Downside Is Very Small. The Other Way Around, And We Don’t Act, And It Turns Out To Be True, Then We Have Betrayed Future Generations And We Don’t Have The Right To Do That.

As For Those That Carried Out These Attacks There Are No Adequate Words Of Condemnation. Their Barbarism Will Stand As Their Shame For All Eternity.

But In Terms Of How People Live Together, How We Minimize The Prospects Of Conflict And Maximize The Prospects Of Peace, The Place Of Religion In Our Society Today Is Essential.

A Challenge So Far-reaching In Its Impact And Irreversible In Its Destructive Power, That It Alters Radically Human Existence... There Is No Doubt That The Time To Act Is Now.

Understand The Causes Of Terror? Yes, We Should Try, But Let There Be No Moral Ambiguity About This: Nothing Could Ever Justify The Events Of September 11 And It Is To Turn Justice On Its Head To Pretend It Could

Every So Often, I Feel I Should Graduate To Classical Music, Properly. But The Truth Is, I'm More Likely To Listen To Rock Music.

You Wouldn't Be Human If You Didn't Feel Both A Sense Of Responsibility And A Deep Sadness For Those Who Have Lost Their Lives.

We Know British Muslims, In General, Abhor The Actions Of The Extremists.

I Still Think There Is A Residual Desire Amongst The Majority Of The Public To Be Given A Proper Solution.

Their Barbarism Will Stand As Their Shame For All Eternity.

What We Have Got To Do Now Is Use This Event, The Resignation Of The Whole Commission, To Drive Through Root And Branch Reform.

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.

I Think The People Like Myself Who Are In The Center Ground Of Politics And Who Think That Center Left And Center Right Can Cooperate And Work Together. Who Don't Like This Sort Of Insurgent Populism Because We Think It's Not Really Going To Deliver For The People, I Think There's A Big Responsibility On Us In The Center To Get Our Act Together. And To Work Out Radical But Serious Solutions To The Problems People Face.

I Can't Stand Politicians Who Wear God On Their Sleeves.

Global Warming Is Too Serious For The World Any Longer To Ignore Its Danger Or Split Into Opposing Factions On It.

Sometimes And In Particular Dealing With A Dictator, The Only Chance Of Peace Is A Readiness For War.

We Are Asked Now Seriously To Accept That In The Last Few Years-contrary To All History, Contrary To All Intelligence-saddam Decided Unilaterally To Destroy Those Weapons. I Say That Such A Claim Is Palpably Absurd.

The Iraqi Elections Struck A Blow To The Heart Of Global Terrorism.

Look, I Am Very Competitive.

The Spanish Pm Rang Me To Say: 'i Have The Support Of Only 4 Per Cent Of The People.' I Said, 'crikey, That's Even Less Than Think Elvis Presley Is Still Alive.'

I Think People Think Their Incomes Have Been Flat Lining For A Long Period Of Time. They Feel That The Next Generation's Opportunities Are Not Going To Be Improvement. So And I Also Think That Social Media Then Allows Insurgent Movements To Gain Scale At Speed.

I Think It Is Having Answers And Not Simply Anger, And Providing Solutions That People Believe Will Change Their Lives In A Radical Way But Do It In A Way That's Sensible.

Can We Be Sure That Terrorism And Wmd Will Join Together? If We Are Wrong, We Will Have Destroyed A Threat That, At Its Least Is Responsible For Inhuman Carnage And Suffering. That Is Something I Am Confident History Will Forgive. But If Our Critics Are Wrong And We Do Not Act, Then We Will Have Hesitated In Face Of This Menace, When We Should Have Given Leadership. That Is Something History Will Not Forgive.

So Actually I Only Got A Mobile Phone The Day After I Left Being Prime Minister.

Personally, I Have Already Turned Down The Downing St Thermostat By 1 Degree

It [the Intelligence Service] Concludes That Iraq Has Chemical And Biological Weapons, That Saddam Has Continued To Produce Them, That He Has Existing And Active Military Plans For The Use Of Chemical And Biological Weapons, Which Could Be Activated Within 45 Minutes, Including Against His Own Shia Population; And That He Is Actively Trying To Acquire Nuclear Weapons Capability.

Intelligence Services

We Have Taken A Situation In The U.k. Because Of Concerns, For Example, Over Immigration And Other Things, So Britain Now Is On A Path Out Of Europe.

There Are Unquestionably Links Between Al-qaida And Iraq.

I Also, As I Think Most People Do, Have A Healthy Instinct That If We Upset The Balance Of Nature, We Are In All Probability Going To Suffer A Reaction. With World Growth, And Population As It Is, This Reaction Must Increase.

You Get These Insurgent Movements Of Populism, Left And Right. An Insurgent Movement Of Populism Took My Political Party Over In The Uk For Example.

One Of The Paradoxes Of Globalization Is That, In The Developing World, We've Seen Massive Reductions In Property.

We Are All Internationalists Now, Whether We Like It Or Not...

I Don't Like It, To Be Honest, When Politicians Make A Big Thing Of Their Religious Beliefs, So I Don't Make A Big Thing Of It.

Our Tolerance Is Part Of What Makes Britain, Britain. Conform To It; Or Don't Come Here.

The British People Are The Boss.

One Thing I'm Not Sure Of - And It's A Very Open Question - Is Whether The Type Of Politics That I Represent Really Has Had Its Day Or Not. Now I Obviously Believe Passionately It Hasn't, That It's Still The Answer And Not The Problem, And, You Know, The Evidence Points Both Ways.

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.

In 1997, We Faced Daunting Challenges. Boom And Bust Economics..... Now, For All That Remains To Be Done, Dwell For A Moment On What Has Been Achieved.

You Only Require Two Things In Life: Your Sanity And Your Wife.

I Mean, You Can Agree Or Disagree With Iraq Or Afghanistan, But By The Way, Now The Great Campaigning Cause Out There Is The Absence Of Intervention In Syria. And Then In Libya, It's Partial Intervention. And That Doesn't Really Explain Why Some Countries That Have Literally Nothing To Do With The Interventions In The Middle East End Up Getting Targeted.

Our Task Is Not To Fight Old Battles, But To Show That There Is A Third Way, A Way Of Marrying Together An Open Competitive Society And Successful Economy With A Just And Decent Society.

I Am A Pretty Straight Sort Of Guy.

You Choose Your Own Reality And You - Social Media Then Amplifies Those Conspiracy Theories. So That's Why I Say Social Media Is Itself A Revolutionary Phenomenon.

In Retrospect, The Millennium Marked Only A Moment In Time. It Was The Events Of September 11 That Marked A Turning Point In History, Where We Confront The Dangers Of The Future And Assess The Choices Facing Humankind.

Anywhere, Anytime Ordinary People Are Given The Chance To Choose, The Choice Is The Same: Freedom, Not Tyranny; Democracy, Not Dictatorship; The Rule Of Law, Not The Rule Of The Secret Police.

I Happen To Think It's The Politics That Makes You Electable, But The Reason For That Is Politicians Sometimes Talk About Electability As If It's Just A Matter Of Conning The Public. Actually, It's A Matter Of Persuading The Public, And In My Experience, Usually, The Public Gets It Right.

A Lot Of The Politics That Is Going On Left And Right At The Moment Is More About A Protest, Which We Should Respond To. It's Not Often About A Policy. And That's Why What You Get Is This Strange Coalition Of Different Views Of What The Future Should Be, Coming Together In Alliance To Protest Against The Status Quo.

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.

There Is No Meeting Of Minds, No Point Of Understanding With Such Terror. Just A Choice: Defeat It Or Be Defeated By It. And Defeat It We Must.

I'm An Avowed Centrist, And I Believe That - Centrism Is Often - It's Almost The Wrong Word To Use, Because It's Often Seen As Sort Of Splitting The Difference Between Right And Left.

The Money From Iraqi Oil Will Be Yours - It Will No Longer Be Used By Saddam Hussein For His Own Benefit.

I Have Long Believed This Interdependence Defines The New World We Live In.

Interdependence

The Iraq Survey Group Has Already Found Massive Evidence Of A Huge System Of Clandestine Laboratories.

I Shall Not Rest Until, Once Again, The Destinies Of Our People And Our Party Are Joined Together Again In Victory At The Next General Election Labour In Its Rightful Place In Government Again.

Make The Wrong Choices Now And Future Generations Will Live With A Changed Climate, Depleted Resources And Without The Green Space And Biodiversity That Contribute Both To Our Standard Of Living And Our Quality Of Life

Ah Yes, Liberal Democrats Unified As Ever In Opportunism And In Error.

We Fall For... The Theories Of Betrayal Very Easily, And One Of The Things That's Always Depressed Me About The Left, Ever Since I Started In Politics, Is Their Ability To Imbibe The Propaganda Of The Right And Regurgitate It To The Left.

The View We Took At The Time And We Take It Now Is That The War Was Justified Legally Because He [saddam Hussein] Remained In Breach Of Un Resolutions.

The Problem Is Some Of The Populism On Both The Far Left And The Far Right, It Can Make A Tweet But Not Make A Policy. And, You Know, When You Are Dealing With Issues That Are As Important And Serious As This, I Understand Why People Search For Simple Solutions.

It Is Not A Sensible Or Intelligent Response For Us In Europe To Ridicule American Arguments And Parody Their Political Leadership.

Repressive States Are Developing Weapons That Could Cause Destruction On A Massive Scale.

What I Don't Know Is Whether There Is A Way Politically That You Can Beat Away These, Some Of These Populist Movements Because In The End I Don't Think They Really Do Provide Answers. They Ride The Anger. But They Don't Really Have The Answers. Or Whether This Is An Experiment We're Just Going To Have To Go Through First.

Whatever The Short Term Clashes Between Protecting The Environment And Eradicating Poverty, Medium Term And Long Term It Is Clear. Unless We Grow Sustainably, At Some Point We Face Catastrophe

Sometimes People Say To Me, 'well, What Was The Difference Between Kosovo, Which Was A Successful Intervention, And Iraq And Afghanistan That Have Been So Difficult?' And The Answer Is Perfectly Simple. In Kosovo, You Have, After The Removal Of The Loss Of Its Regime, You Had A Process Of Political And Economic Reconstruction That Took Its Part Without The Intervention Of Terrorism. If You Had The Intervention Of Terrorism, By The Way, It Would Have Been Extremely Difficult There - But We Didn't.

You Know, One Of The Things I've Learnt Since Coming Out Of Office Is How Much Easier It Is To Give The Advice Than Take The Decision. I Mean, You Know, It's Tough.

The Evidence About Saddam Having Actual Biological And Chemical Weapons, As Opposed To The Capability To Develop Them, Has Turned Out To Be Wrong. I Acknowledge That And Accept It. I Simply Point Out, Such Evidence Was Agreed By The Whole International Community, Not Least Because Saddam Had Used Such Weapons Against His Own People And Neighbouring Countries.

I Didn't Come Into Politics To Change The Labour Party. I Came Into Politics To Change The Country.

In No Relationship At The Top Of Any Walk Of Life Is It Always Easy, Least Of All In Politics Which Matters So Much And Which Is Conducted In Such A Piercing Spotlight.

Be A Doer And Not A Critic.

What Is Obviously Unfair Is That The Half Of The Population That Doesn't Go To University That's Often On Lower Incomes Pays More Taxes In Order To Send Other People To University, Without Them, You Know, Contributing.

Immigration Is Good For A Country. It Brings Fresh Energy.

Labour Is The Party Of Law And Order In Britain Today. Tough On Crime, Tough On The Causes Of Crime.

Politics May Be The Art Of The Possible; But, At Least In Life, Give The Impossible A Go.

We Can Only Protect Liberty By Making It Relevant To The Modern World.

I Always Say, When They Ask Me About American Politics, Is For You Guys To Decide Who You Elect.

American Politics

The First Rule In Politics Is That There Are No Rules, At Least Not In The Sense Of Inevitable Defeats Or Inevitable Victories. If You Have The Right Policy And The Right Strategy, You Always Have A Chance Of Winning. Without Them, You Can Lose No Matter How Certain The Victory Seems.

I Abhor Saddam's Regime, But The Basis Has To Be Disarmament.

Once His Wife Goes To Sleep It Takes A Minor Nuclear Explosion To Wake Her.

You Don't Have To Keep Looking At The Future Foreign Policy In Terms, Simply, Of The Past.

Of Particular Importance To Us Is The Recognition... That What We Want Is A Europe Of Nations, Not A Federal Super-state.

There Are Millions Of Young Children Being Educated To A Very Narrow-minded View Of Religion. And It's Out Of That Education Of Large Numbers Of Young People That You Then Get This Extremism.

The Full Horror Of What Has Happened In The United States Earlier Today Is Now Becoming Clearer. It Is Hard Even To Contemplate The Utter Carnage And Terror Which Has Engulfed So Many Innocent People. We've Offered President Bush And The American People Our Solidarity, Our Profound Sympathy, And Our Prayers. But It Is Plain That Citizens Of Many Countries Round The World, Including Britain, Will Have Been Caught Up In This Terror.

After The Terrible Events Of Last Week, There Is Still The Shock And Disbelief; There Is Anger; There Is Fear; But There Is Also, Throughout The World, A Profound Sense Of Solidarity; There Is Courage; There Is A Surging Of The Human Spirit.

Terrible Events

Any Action Taken Will Be Against The Terrorist Network Of Bin Laden.... As For The Taleban, They Can Surrender The Terrorists Or Face The Consequences - And Again In Any Action The Aim Will Be To Eliminate Their Military Hardware, Cut Off Their Finances, Disrupt Their Supplies, Target Their Troops, Not Civilians.

King Fahd Was A Man Of Great Vision And Leadership Who Inspired His Countrymen For A Quarter Of A Century As King. He Led Saudi Arabia Through A Period Of Unparalleled Progress And Development.

There Are People Who Are Anxious About Immigration For Reasons That Are Perfectly Sensible. They Think It's Uncontrolled. They Think It's, Therefore, Arbitrary In Its Consequences, And There Are Some Communities Affected Much More Deeply Than Others.

Yes, I Feel I've Got Something To Say. If People Want To Listen, That's Great, And If They Don't, That's Their Choice.

Ever So Often In The History Of Human Endeavour, There Comes A Breakthrough That Takes Humankind Across A Frontier Into A New Era. ... Today's Announcement Is Such A Breakthrough, A Breakthrough That Opens The Way For Massive Advancement In The Treatment Of Cancer And Hereditary Diseases. And That Is Only The Beginning.

My Teachers Used To Call Me A Failure

There's A Great Frustration With The System. There's A Lot Of Anger Out There. But In The End, You Need Answers And Not Just Anger. But Anyway, Let Me Not Trespass Too Much Into Your Politics. I've Got Enough Problems In My Own Politics.

I Will Do What It Takes To Help Ed Miliband Win General Election.

Education Is The Best Economic Policy There Is.

Economic Policy

I Think What Happened With 9/11 Is That People Sort Of Felt That It Came From Nowhere. Whereas I Think Now We Understand The Roots Are Very Deep. I Say It's Like Revolutionary Communism, Something That Is Going To Have To Be Knocked Out Over A Very Long Period Of Time. This Strain Of Extremism Continues To Be Very Strong, Whether It's In Afghanistan, Or Somalia Or Yemen, Or Any Of These Places.

I Think We've, Again, Got To Be Extremely Careful; Otherwise We'll Misunderstand What's Going On In Iraq And In Syria Today. Of Course, You Can't Say That Those Of Us Who Removed Saddam In 2003 Bear No Responsibility For The Situation In 2015.

I Couldn't Live With Myself If I Thought That These Big Strategic Choices For My Generation Were There, And I Wasn't Even Making Them - Or I Was Making Them According To What Was Expedient Rather Than What I Actually Thought Was Right.

She Was The People's Princess And That Is How She Will Stay, How She Will Remain In Our Hearts And Our Memories For Ever.

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