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The Trouble Is Nowadays That Parts Of The Media Operate In A Very Partisan Way. There's No Point In Complaining About It, That's The Way It Is. But Let's Be Clear, A Lot Of It Is Driven By The Views Of A Pretty Small Number Of People, Rather Than A Normal Standard Of Journalism.

-Tony Blair

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The Trouble Is Nowadays

Tony Blair

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The Trouble Is Nowadays That Parts Of The Media Operate In A Very Partisan Way. There's No Point In Complaining About It, That's The Way It Is. But Let's Be Clear, A Lot Of It Is Driven By The Views Of A Pretty Small Number Of People, Rather Than A Normal Standard Of Journalism.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Our Task Is Not To Fight Old Battles, But To Show That There Is A Third Way, A Way Of Marrying Together An Open Competitive Society And Successful Economy With A Just And Decent Society.

I Think I Made The Wrong Career Choice

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Time To Move On

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.

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.

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

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

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.

You Get These Insurgent Movements Of Populism, Left And Right. An Insurgent Movement Of Populism Took My Political Party Over In The Uk For Example.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 Believe The Bicentenary Offers Us A Chance Not Just To Say How Profoundly Shameful The Slave Trade Was - How We Condemn Its Existence Utterly And Praise Those Who Fought For Its Abolition - But Also To Express Our Deep Sorrow That It Could Ever Have Happened And Rejoice At The Better Times We Live In Today.

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

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

My Teachers Used To Call Me A Failure

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mass Destruction

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

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.

It Is Not A Sensible Or Intelligent Response For Us In Europe To Ridicule American Arguments And Parody Their Political Leadership.

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

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

Choice Dependent On Wealth; Those Are The Tory Words.

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

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

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

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!'

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

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'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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Fifteen Years Ago, If You Said Business Will Help Save The Environment People Would Have Laughed At You. Today, I Believe That Is A Serious Proposition.

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.'

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 The F***ing Prime Minister!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

There Should Not Be A Party Within A Party.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Their Barbarism Will Stand As Their Shame For All Eternity.

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.

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.

I Had No Intention Of Returning Into The British Political Debate, Really At All, Even Though I've Obviously Got Very Strong Views On It, Until Brexit Happened, Because I Think Brexit Is A Destiny-changing Decision For My Country.

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.

Look, I Am Very Competitive.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

What I Don't Know Is Whether There Is A Way Politically That You Can Beat Away These, Some Of These Populist Movements Because In The End I Don't Think They Really Do Provide Answers. They Ride The Anger. But They Don't Really Have The Answers. Or Whether This Is An Experiment We're Just Going To Have To Go Through First.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 Do Not Want To End Up With An American Style Of Politics, With Us Going Out There Beating Our Chest About Our Faith. Politics And Religion - It Is Not That They Do Not Have A Lot In Common, But If [religion] Ends Up Being Used In The Political Process, I Think That Is A Bit Unhealthy.

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.

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

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.

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

Education, Education, Education

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.

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.

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

I Think We've, Again, Got To Be Extremely Careful; Otherwise We'll Misunderstand What's Going On In Iraq And In Syria Today. Of Course, You Can't Say That Those Of Us Who Removed Saddam In 2003 Bear No Responsibility For The Situation In 2015.

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

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

American Politics

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

Deportation Is A Decision Taken By The Home Secretary Under Statute, The New Grounds Will Include Fostering Hatred, Advocating Violence To Further A Person's Beliefs, Or Justifying Or Validating Such Violence.

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.

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

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

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.

This Mass Terrorism Is The New Evil In Our World Today

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Trouble Is Nowadays That Parts Of The Media Operate In A Very Partisan Way. There's No Point In Complaining About It, That's The Way It Is. But Let's Be Clear, A Lot Of It Is Driven By The Views Of A Pretty Small Number Of People, Rather Than A Normal Standard Of Journalism.

What Is True About (ex-iraq Survey Group Head) David Kay's Evidence, And This Is Something I Have To Accept, And Is One Of The Reasons Why I Think We Now Need A New Inquiry - It Is True David Kay Is Saying We Have Not Found Large Stockpiles Of Actual Weapons.

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.

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

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.'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Interdependence

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.

They Could Have Been Removed. They Could Have Been Hidden. They Could Have Been Destroyed.

Could Have Been

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

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!

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

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

Genuine Concern

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.

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.

The Spanish Pm Rang Me To Say: 'i Have The Support Of Only 4 Per Cent Of The People.' I Said, 'crikey, That's Even Less Than Think Elvis Presley Is Still Alive.'

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Free Enterprise

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

Yes, I Feel I've Got Something To Say. If People Want To Listen, That's Great, And If They Don't, That's Their Choice.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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 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?

Enough Of Talking: It Is Time Now To Do.

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

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.

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.

Education Is The Best Economic Policy There Is.

Economic Policy

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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Siddhartha Mukherjee

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