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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.

-Tony Blair

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The Threat Today Is

Tony Blair

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Actually The Royal Family Were Very Gracious And Good To Me. But I Also Found That The British Establishment Were Never Quite Sure What To Make Of Me. I Was A Labour Figure, But I'd Come From A Very Middle-class Background. In One Sense I Offended Both Traditional Right And Traditional Left. But I Thought That Was No Bad Thing.

All New Schools...should Be Models For Sustainable Development: Showing Every Child In The Classroom And The Playground How Smart Building And Energy Use Can Help Tackle Global Warming...sustainable Development Will Not Just Be A Subject In The Classroom: It Will Be In Its Bricks And Mortar And The Way The School Uses And Even Generates Its Own Power.

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

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

I 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.

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

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

Mass Destruction

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

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

Mass Destruction

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

There Should Not Be A Party Within A Party.

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

Society Works By Putting Opportunity And Responsibility Together.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

The British People Are The Boss.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Education Is The Best Economic Policy There Is.

Economic Policy

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

Mass Destruction

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".

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

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.

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.

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.

My Teachers Used To Call Me A Failure

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Free Enterprise

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

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

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.

Saddam Was A Threat, That The Threat Had To Be Dealt With.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

There Are Unquestionably Links Between Al-qaida And Iraq.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Genuine Concern

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.

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!'

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Haven't Come To The Conclusion That Centrist Politics Is Wrong Or Dead. On The Contrary. I Think It's Very Much Alive - But It Needs To Be Given A Renewal, A Revival, And A Muscularity Which It Presently Lacks.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

This Mass Terrorism Is The New Evil In Our World Today

We Have No Plans To Increase Tax At All.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Choice Dependent On Wealth; Those Are The Tory Words.

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.

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

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

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

I Think I Made The Wrong Career Choice

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Real Integrity Means An Answer. It Doesn't Just Mean - It Doesn't Mean Riding The Anger. And This Is Very Difficult To Do.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

There Will Be No Peace In Our World Without An Understanding Of The Place Of Religion Within It.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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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