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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.

-Tony Blair

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Our Ultimate Weapon Is

Tony Blair

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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.

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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'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 Downing Street They Called Me 'boss'. Civil Servants Would Always Call Me 'prime Minister'.

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

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

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

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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

I'm Not Asking You To Agree With Me, But At Least Open Your Mind.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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There Are Unquestionably Links Between Al-qaida And Iraq.

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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.

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.

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.

The Biological Agents We Believe Iraq Can Produce Include Anthrax, Botulinum, Toxin, Aflatoxin And Ricin. All Eventually Result In Excruciatingly Painful Death.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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I Am A Pretty Straight Sort Of Guy.

People Divide Into Groups Where They Talk To Each Other, But Don't Talk Across The Divide. And Yet Most Of The Challenges We Face In The World Today Are Challenges That Are To Do With Trade, With Technology, With How You Make Sure That People Are Properly Educated, Reform Your Health Care System.

Examine The Legacy That We Inherited And What We Did. We Had Boom-and-bust Economics And A Doubled National Debt.

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

Choice Dependent On Wealth; Those Are The Tory Words.

I Think All Of Our Experience With Iraqi President Saddam Hussein Teaches Us That Diplomacy Has Very Little Chance Of Working Unless It Is Clear To Him That If Diplomacy Does Not Work, That The Threatened Reality Of Force Is There.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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I've Never Ruled Out The Possibility Of Going Back Into Public Service.

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

We Are Going To Expand Enormously -- Our Economy, Our Consumption, Over The Years To Come ... But The Consequences Of That On Emissions Are Going To Be Severe Unless We Change Direction.

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.

Immigration Was Probably The Driving Thing Behind Brexit.

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.

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

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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'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.

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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.

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

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.

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 I Made The Wrong Career Choice

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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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Do I Know I'm Right? Judgements Aren't The Same As Facts. Instinct Is Not Science. I'm Like Any Other Human Being As Fallible And As Capable Of Being Wrong. I Only Know What I Believe.

When Europe And America Stand Together The World Is A Better And More Prosperous Place.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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.

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?

The Spread Of Freedom Is The Best Security For The Free.

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.

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.

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

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

The British Are Special. The World Knows It. In Our Innermost Thoughts We Know It. This Is The Greatest Nation On Earth.

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

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.

At The Heart Of My Politics Has Always Been The Value Of Community, The Belief That We Are Not Merely Individuals Struggling In Isolation From Each Other, But Members Of A Community Who Depend On Each Other, Who Benefit From Each Other's Help, Who Owe Obligations To Each Other. From That Everything Stems: Solidarity, Social Justice, Equality, Freedom.

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 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.

One Of The Most Important Things In Politics Is You've Got To Keep Your Mind Infinitely Curious And Alive To What Is Happening Differently.

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.

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 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.

It's Not A Burning Ambition For Me To Make Sure That David Beckham Earns Less Money.

The First Big Choice: A Government With The Strength To Deliver Stability, Or A Government That Takes The Country Back To Boom And Bust.

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.

The Donald Trump Phenomenon In The U.s. Is Mirrored Completely By The Brexit Phenomenon In The U.k. It's Very Similar Forces. And What Is Interesting To Me Is There Are Two Different Groups That Come Together, Who Don't Really Agree With Each Other, But Have Come Together In Unity Against, If You Like, What Is Perceived As The Status Quo, Or - And Certainly What Is A More Center-right Or Center-left Type Of Politics.

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.

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.

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

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

I Think Everyone's Had Their Pound Of Flesh And Now It's Time To Move On.

Time To Move On

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

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

Nato's Got A Vital Role To Play. It's Very Important That We Protect Nato.

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.

I Think Social Media Is A Revolutionary Phenomenon All In Itself.

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

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

This Mass Terrorism Is The New Evil In Our World Today

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.

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

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

Yes, I Did Have To Struggle Very Hard To Get This [the Vote On The Iraq War] Through, But The Reason I Did It Was Because I Thought It Was The Right Thing To Do. I Didn't Take This On Myself... Just Because I Thought, 'let's Give Myself A Really Hard Time For A Couple Of Years!'

We Have A Situation Where We Are Rich Really As A World Overall, And Yet We Have The Capacity To Destroy Ourselves, Either Through Nuclear Weapons Or Through Environmental Degradation, And We Allow The Life Chances Of Hundreds Of Millions Of People To Be Destroyed Because We Haven't Found The Will To Tackle It

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Be A Doer And Not A Critic.

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

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.

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.

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

I Think, There Is A Possibility - I Would Say It's More Than That - That We Will Come To A View Of Foreign Policy Going Forward That Learns From The Past But Doesn't Get Captured By It.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

That's The Art Of Leadership. To Make Sure That What Shouldn't Happen, Doesn't Happen.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Times Are Tough But They Are Tough Because The Government Is Trying To Do The Right Thing, Whether On Public Service Reform, Education, Health, Anti-social Behaviour And Welfare, Or In Counter-terrorism.

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

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

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

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.

I Do Not Seek Unpopularity As A Badge Of Honour, But Sometimes It Is The Price Of Leadership And The Cost Of Conviction.

We Have No Plans To Increase Tax At All.

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.

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

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

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.

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?

The Best Philanthropy Is Not Just About Giving Money But Giving Leadership. The Best Philanthropists Bring The Gifts That Made Them Successful-the Drive, The Determination, The Refusal To Accept That Something Can't Be Done If It Needs To Be Into Their Philanthropy.

There Has To Be Certainty And There Has To Be Clarity. There Can't Be Ambiguity, .. This Has To Be Certain, Clear In All Respects From All The Parties So Nobody Is In Any Doubt About What The Future Holds.

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.

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.

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.

People Always Think American Politics Is Very Different, But Usually It Is A Predictor Of What Happens In The Politics Elsewhere.

In This Day And Age If You've Got The Technology Then It's Vital To Use That Technology To Track People Down. The Number On The Database Should Be The Maximum Number You Can Get.

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

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.

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

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

Genuine Concern

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I Do Believe That If You Reach A Just And Fair Settlement Between The Israelis And The Palestinians It Will Have A Massive Influence On Countering Extremism. Which Is Not To Say That The Israel-palestinian Situation Is The Source Of The Problem, But It Is Very Potent Fuel.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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