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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.

-Tony Blair

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So Much Of Politics

Tony Blair

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Time To Move On

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

All The Way Through, We Have Been Willing To Take Risks, Provided At The End Of It We Can Get A Decent Lasting Settlement In Northern Ireland

Be A Doer And Not A Critic.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Genuine Concern

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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'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.

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.

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.

I Don't Think It's Surprising We Will Have To Look For Them. I'm Confident That When The Iraq Survey Group Has Done Its Work We Will Find What's Happened To Those Weapons Because He Had Them.

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

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

American Politics

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 Relationship Between Britain And The Us Is Fantastically Important When Confronting Terrorism.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 Can Stand Here Today, Leader Of The Labour Party, Prime Minister, And Say To The British People: You Have Never Had It So ... Prudent.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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 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 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.

Education Is The Best Economic Policy There Is.

Economic Policy

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

And Just As The Terrorist Seeks To Divide Humanity In Hate, So We Have To Unify It Around An Idea. And That Idea Is Liberty.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

There Is No Way You're Going To Have An Event Like 9/11 And Expect Things To Remain The Same. They Killed 3,000 People In New York On That Day, And If They Could Have They Would've Killed 300,000.

I'm A Labour Politician, But, You Know, I Can See Decent Tories With Good Ideas.

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.

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

Interdependence

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

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.

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

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.

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

I Am A Pretty Straight Sort Of Guy.

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

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

There's A Huge Wave Of Anti-establishment Feeling. There's An Enormous Amount Of Anger. And It's Collapsing Governments And Political Movements Across The World Right Now.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The British People Are The Boss.

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

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

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.

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.

We Have No Plans To Increase Tax At All.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Choice Dependent On Wealth; Those Are The Tory Words.

The Blunt Truth About The Politics Of Climate Change Is That No Country Will Want To Sacrifice Its Economy In Order To Meet This Challenge.

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.

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

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 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.

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

People Should Go About Their Daily Lives, To Work, To Live, To Travel, To Shop, To Do The Things People Did In The Same Way As They Did Them Before 11 September.

Education, Education, Education

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Mass Destruction

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

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

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

Mass Destruction

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

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.

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 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.

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.

Genetic Modification Has Many Different Areas, For Example In Medicine, And Britain Is At The Leading Edge Of This New Technology. I Don't Know, But People Tell Me, It Could Indeed By The Leading Science Of The 21st Century. All I Say To People Is: 'just Keep An Open Mind And Let Us Proceed According To Genuine Scientific Evidence.'

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

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

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 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.

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.

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Anderson Cooper

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