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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.

-Tony Blair

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I Think The People

Tony Blair

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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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.

Climate Change Is Probably The Greatest Long-term Challenge Facing The Human Race.

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

American Politics

Saddam Hussein's Regime Is Despicable, He Is Developing Weapons Of Mass Destruction, And We Cannot Leave Him Doing So Unchecked. He Is A Threat To His Own People And To The Region And, If Allowed To Develop These Weapons, A Threat To Us Also.

Mass Destruction

This Mass Terrorism Is The New Evil In Our World Today. It Is Perpetrated By Fanatics Who Are Utterly Indifferent To The Sanctity Of Human Life, And We The Democracies Of This World Are Going To Have To Come Together And Fight It Together.

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.

This Is Not A Battle Between The United States Of America And Terrorism, But Between The Free And Democratic World And Terrorism.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

I Think Crime Is A Huge Issue For People. If You Were Living In The Poorest State, And You've Got Drug Dealers At The End Of The Street, And Your Life's In Misery, And You're Afraid Of Your Kids Going Out The Door. I Mean, The Job Of Progressive Politicians Is To Do Something About That.

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.

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.

Immigration Was Probably The Driving Thing Behind Brexit.

We've Seen The Reality Of Saddam's Regime: His Thugs Prepared To Kill Their Own People, The Parading Of Prisoners Of War And Now The Release Of Those Pictures Of Executed British Soldiers.

But I Am An Optimist About Britain; And The Difference Between An Optimist And A Pessimist Is Not That The Optimist Believes The World Is Wonderful And The Pessimist Believes It's Beset By Challenges; The Difference Is The Pessimist Believes We Will Be Defeated By Them; The Optimist Thinks The Challenges Can Be Overcome.

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.

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

We, Therefore, Here In Britain Stand Shoulder To Shoulder With Our American Friends In This Hour Of Tragedy, And We, Like Them, Will Not Rest Until This Evil Is Driven From Our World.

...we Must Support And Protect Individuals And Companies Engaged In Life Saving Medical Research

Self-interest And Mutual Interest Are Inextricably Linked. National Interests Can Best Be Advanced Through Collective Action, ... Calculate Not Just The Human Misery Of The Poor Themselves. Calculate Our Loss: The Aid, The Lost Opportunity To Trade, The Short-term Consequences Of The Multiple Conflicts; The Long-term Consequences On The Attitude To The Wealthy World Of Injustice And Abject Deprivation Amongst The Poor.

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.

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

I'm The F***ing Prime Minister!

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.

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.

We In A Sense Went For The Bernie Sanders Model Ok? Now We're Also In Turmoil As A Result Of This Result.

The British People Are The Boss.

There Are Those People Who Basically Don't Like Those Who Are Different. Now, That Is A Prejudice And It's A Prejudice That's Dangerous Because In The World Today, The World Works Through Connectivity. It Works Through Going Across The Boundaries, But Faith And Culture And Race In A Nation.

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

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!

Where Radical Islamism Is Going To Be A Factor, It's Going To Be Very, Very Tough.

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

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

But The World Is Ever More Interdependent. Stock Markets And Economies Rise And Fall Together. Confidence Is The Key To Prosperity. Insecurity Spreads Like Contagion. So People Crave Stability And Order.

Look, I Am Very Competitive.

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

I Mean, I Went To A Church School When I Was Younger And Imbibed A Certain Amount Of Religion Then But It Was Really In University That I Got Interested In Religion And Politics At The Same Time. I Don't Think As If It Were One Moment Of Conversion But My Spiritual Journey Really Began Then.

I Think The Center Ground Have Got To Become The People Of Change Again And Not The Guardians Of The Status Quo. And That Is The Weakness It Comes To In Our Campaign. You Can See It In Your Politics, You Can See It Everywhere.

Education, Education, Education

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.

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

There Are Unquestionably Links Between Al-qaida And Iraq.

Mine Is The First Generation Able To Contemplate The Possibility That We May Live Our Entire Lives Without Going To War Or Sending Our Children To War.

So Much Of Politics Is About The Daily Grind Of Political Business: The People To See, The Myriad Different Facets Of Government, The Remorseless Agenda Of This Part Of The Media Or That.

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.

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

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What I'm Really More Interested In Doing - Because I Think, In A Way That's Kind Of Obvious - And You Can See, Look Into Austria - You've Got A Far-right Candidate Who May Become The President Because He's In A Close-run Race.

We Need To Develop The New Green Industrial Revolution That Develops The New Technologies That Can Confront And Overcome The Challenge Of Climate Change; And That Above All Can Show Us Not That We Can Avoid Changing Our Behaviour But We Can Change It In A Way That Is Environmentally Sustainable.

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

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.

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.'

If We Want To Contrast What We Have Done In The Past Few Years On Delivery With What The Right Hon. And Learned Gentleman Delivered, Let Us Remember The Interest Rates At 10 Per Cent. To 15 Per Cent., The 1.5 Million Fewer People In Work, The Boom And The Bust And The Borrowing At 8 Per Cent.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Mass Destruction

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I Don't Think There Is A Way Politically To Beat "insurgent Movement Of Populism".

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

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

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

It's Not That Tens Of Millions Of People All Want To Be Violent. But They Share The Worldview That Then, At Its Extreme, Gives Rise To The Violence. And In My View, This Is Why This Is Such A Global Problem.

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.

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 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.

We Expected, I Expected To Find Actual Usable, Chemical Or Biological Weapons After We Entered Iraq.

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.

Lord Cranborne Told The Leader Of The Opposition To 'back Me Or Sack Me' - He Succeeded In Doing Both.

Today The Impulse Towards Interdependence Is Immeasurably Greater. We Are Witnessing The Beginnings Of A New Doctrine Of International Community.

If What The Science Tells Us About Climate Change Is Correct, Then Unabated It Will Result In Catastrophic Consequences For Our World.

I Say To The Taliban: Surrender The Terrorists; Or Surrender Power. It's Your Choice.

If We Are Going To Carry On Growing, And We Will, Because No Country Is Going To Forfeit Its Right To Economic Growth, We Have To Find A Way Of Doing It Sustainably.

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

When I Started Out As Prime Minister I Wanted To Please All The People All The Time. By The End I Was Wondering If I Pleased Any Of The People Any Of The Time.

What The Commission That Myself And Leon Panetta Is Trying To Do Is Analyze This In Two Respects. First Of All, What's The Right Military Response And Security Response?

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

There Have Been The Most Terrible, Shocking Events Taking Place In The United States Of America Within The Last Hour Or So... I Am Afraid We Can Only Imagine The Terror And The Carnage There And The Many, Many Innocent People Who Will Have Lost Their Lives... It Is Perpetrated By Fanatics Who Are Utterly Indifferent To The Sanctity Of Human Life And We, The Democracies Of This World, Are Going To Have To Come Together To Fight It Together And Eradicate This Evil Completely From Our World.

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.

There Is Good Evidence That Last Year's European Heat Wave Was Influenced By Global Warming. It Resulted In 26,000 Premature Deaths And Cost $13.5bn.

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

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.

Because I Happen To Believe That The Best Policy Solutions Lie In The Center Ground, Then I Want To See, How Does The Center Revitalize Itself? How Does It Develop The Policy Agenda For The Future? And How Do We Link Up People Who Have The Same Basic Ideas And Attachments To The Same Basic Values Across The World?

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 People In The End Think That You Can't Do Something In A Way Which Is Acceptable Then It Won't Fly. The Only Way You Get Anything Like This Done Is If People Think, 'i Understand Why It Is Being Done.'

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.

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.

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.

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

The Purpose Of Terrorism Lies Not Just In The Violent Act Itself. It Is In Producing Terror. It Sets Out To Inflame, To Divide, To Produce Consequences Which They Then Use To Justify Further Terror.

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.

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

The Threat From Saddam Hussein And Weapons Of Mass Destruction - Chemical, Biological, Potentially Nuclear Weapons Capability - That Threat Is Real.

Mass Destruction

Now You May Do It Badly, You May Do It Well, Some People Like You, Some People Hate You, All The Rest Of It - But You Have Got A Real Motivating Life Purpose. [on Being Prime Minister

My Course Has Never Been About Triangulation, And Neither, Really, Is Bill Clinton's. It's Not - It's About Applying Your Values To The Future In A Practical And Unblinking Way, And That Is An Ideological View That Is Every Bit As Strong As Views From The Left Or From The Right.

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

The Only Society That Works Today Is Also One Founded On Mutual Respect, On A Recognition That We Have A Responsibility Collectively And Individually, To Help Each Other On The Basis Of Each Other's Equal Worth. A Selfish Society Is A Contradiction In Terms.

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

I See The Koran Very Much As An Outsider. It Stands In The Great Prophetic Tradition Of Trying To Return People To The Basic Principles Of Spirituality. Taken For Its Time, It Was An Extraordinarily Progressive Declaration Of Principle. It Is Also Extraordinary For A Christian To Read: For Example, There Are More References To Mary Than In The Gospels. The Tragedy Is That It Has Been So Warped And Misapplied.

Leaders Lead But In The End It's The People Who Deliver.

My Faith Foundation Works To Bring About A Greater Respect And Understanding Between Different Faiths. We Basically Work With Six Popular Religions In The World Which Are The Three Abrahamic Religions, Hinduism And Buddhism And Sikhism.

I Learnt A Lot In Government, And I've Learnt A Lot Since Leaving Government. The Kind Of Journey Of Being In Government Is That You Start At Your Most Popular And Least Capable, And You End At Your Most Capable And Least Popular.

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

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.

Our Ultimate Weapon Is Not Our Guns But Our Beliefs...the Spread Of Freedom Is The Best Security For The Free. It Is Our Last Line Of Defense And Our First Line Of Attack.

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.

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.

We Promise That The Events Of 1991 Will Not Happen Again. We Have Pledged To Remove Saddam. And We Will Deliver.

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

No One Is To Blame For The Breakdown In Trust Between Politics, Media And The Public.

I Think It's Important For People Like Me To Evaluate And Reevaluate.

Retreat Might Give Us A Moment Of Respite But Years Of Repentance At Our Weakness Would, I Believe, Follow.

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?

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.

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

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

If We Don't Act Now, Then We Will Go Back To What Has Happened Before And Then Of Course The Whole Thing Begins Again And He Carries On Developing These Weapons And These Are Dangerous Weapons, Particularly If They Fall Into The Hands Of Terrorists Who We Know Want To Use These Weapons If They Can Get Them.

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

I Had Discovered Long Ago The First Lesson Of Political Courage: To Think Anew. I Had Then Learned The Second: To Be Prepared To Lead And To Decide. I Was Now Studying The Third: How To Take The Calculated Risk. I Was Going To Alienate Some People, Like It Or Not. The Moment You Decide, You Divide.

As So Often Before, On The Courage And Determination Of British Men And Women, Serving Our Country, The Fate Of Many Nations Rests.

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.

If You're Living In A Community That's Become Fragmented And Left Behind, There's Not Proper Investment In It And So On, In The End, The Answer Is To Make Sure That We Go And We Help Those Communities, We Educate The People Properly, We Build The Necessary Infrastructure Of Support For People.

As I Have Said Throughout, I Have No Doubt That They Will Find The Clearest Possible Evidence Of Saddam's Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

Mass Destruction

Your Loss We Count As Our Loss. Your Struggle We Take As Our Struggle.

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 Asking You To Agree With Me, But At Least Open Your Mind.

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

Be A Doer And Not A Critic.

Ideals Survive Through Change. They Die Through Inertia In The Face Of Challenge.

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.

What I Will Say To People Is What You Require Are Rules And Not Prejudices.

I Can Only Go One Way. I've Not Got A Reverse Gear.

I Am A Pretty Straight Sort Of Guy.

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.

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

Mass Destruction

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Interdependence

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.

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

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

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

The Big Issue Of Our Time Is Trying To Deal With Extremism Based On A Perversion Of Religion And How You Get Peaceful Coexistence Between People Of Different Faiths And Cultures.

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.

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.

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.

The Intelligence Is Clear: (saddam) Continues To Believe His Wmd Programme Is Essential Both For Internal Repression And For External Aggression.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Just Want To Say This. I Want To Say It Gently But I Want To Say It Firmly: There Is A Tendency For The World To Say To America, ‘the Big Problems Of The World Are Yours, You Go And Sort Them Out,’ And Then To Worry When America Wants To Sort Them Out.

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.

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

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

Genuine Concern

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Education Is The Best Economic Policy There Is.

Economic Policy

Bill Clinton Has Been A True Leader Of The Western World. He Has Been A Friend And A Counsel To Me And Other Leaders Right Around The World.

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

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

But As I Always Say To People I'm Essentially A Public Service Person.

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

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

We Can Debate This Or That Aspect Of Climate Change, But The Reality Is That Most People Now Accept Our Climate Is Indeed Subject To Change As A Result Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

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.

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

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

If I'd Proposed Solving The Pension Problem By Compulsory Euthanasia For Every Fifth Pensioner I'd Have Got Less Trouble For It.

In Government You Carry Each Hope; Each Disillusion. And In Politics It's Always About The Next Challenge.

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

I Think Most People Who Have Dealt With Me Think I'm A Pretty Straight Sort Of Guy, And I Am.

However Much I Dislike The Idea Of Abortion, You Should Not Criminalize A Woman Who, In Very Difficult Circumstances, Makes That Choice.

My View Is That You Still, In Order To Win From The Labour Perspective, Have To Have A Strong Alliance With Business As Well As The Unions. You Have Got To Be Very Much In The Centre Ground On Things Like Public Sector Reform.

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.

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.

Enough Of Talking: It Is Time Now To Do.

Conflict Is Not Inevitable, But Disarmament Is... Everyone Now Accepts That If There Is A Default By Saddam The International Community Must Act To Enforce Its Will.

Those Who Wish To Cause Religious Conflict Are Small In Number But Often Manage To Dominate The Headline.

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Marian McPartland

Karl A. Menninger

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