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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.

-Tony Blair

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Self-interest And Mutual Interest

Tony Blair

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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Europe And America

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

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

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Mass Destruction

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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.

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Intelligence Services

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

Choice Dependent On Wealth; Those Are The Tory Words.

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

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Look, I Am Very Competitive.

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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.

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

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

Interdependence

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

Terrorist Threats Are Not Happening Just In This Country, But In Every European Country And Every Country Across The Globe. As A Result Of That, We Do Sometimes Have To Take Measures We Would Rather Not Take In Order To Give Us The Security We Need.

There Are Unquestionably Links Between Al-qaida And Iraq.

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

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Genuine Concern

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.

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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.'

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

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Mass Destruction

I Say The Elite Looks Out Of Touch Because It's Kind Of Saying; Look We'll Manage All This For You. You Know, We Know Best. We'll Sort It All Out For You. And Then Because People Believe That Doesn't Meet Their Case For Change And They Want Real Change, Social Media And The Way The Relationship Between People Can Come Into A Sense Of Belonging Very Quickly, That Then Is Itself A Revolutionary Phenomenon. You See This Around The World.

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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.

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.

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And The Problem Is, I Can Apologise For The Information That Turned Out To Be Wrong, But I Can't, Sincerely At Least, Apologise For Removing Saddam.

Nothing Is More Important To England's Arrangements For The World Cup Than The State Of David Beckham's Foot.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Enough Of Talking: It Is Time Now To Do.

This Mass Terrorism Is The New Evil In Our World Today

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

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 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.

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

I Think I Made The Wrong Career Choice

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.

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

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

Be A Doer And Not A Critic.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Their Barbarism Will Stand As Their Shame For All Eternity.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The British People Are The Boss.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Emphasis Placed By More And More Companies On Corporate Social Responsibility, Symbolises The Recognition That Prosperity Is Best Achieved In An Inclusive Society.

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

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

I Am A Pretty Straight Sort Of Guy.

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.

We Have No Plans To Increase Tax At All.

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.

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

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!'

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.

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.

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Stephen Hawking

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