What is Parliament for if it is not to be a means to make ministers accountable for the services for which they are responsible.

Let us be clear. Prison works. It ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists, and it makes many who are tempted to commit crime think twice.

The true use of history, whether civil or military, is not to make man clever for the next time, it is to make him wise forever.

There is only one opinion poll that I am interested in and that is the one that will take place on election day.

People often of masterful intelligence, trained usually in law or economics or perhaps in political science, who have led their governments into disastrous decisions and miscalculations because they have no awareness whatever of the historical background, the cultural universe, of the foreign societies with which they have to deal.

Tony Blair is already secretly grinning at the prospect of his third victory. You don't have to settle for that.

A common language is the most obvious binding element in any society.

We're not saying, 'We're politicians, trust us.' We know you don't trust us.

I believe abortion should be available to everyone, but the law should be changed. In the past I voted for a restriction to 22 weeks, and I would be prepared to go down to 20.

History is what we read, write and think about the past.

I am happy to debate the past with the Prime Minister... I have a big dossier on his past, and I did not even have to sex it up.