The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.
The crisis that we inherit when we come to power will be the occasion for fundamental change and not the excuse for postponing it.
I try to operate on two unconnected levels. One on the practical level of action in which I am extremely cautious and conservative. The second is the realm of ideas where I try to be very free.
Some of the jam we thought was for tomorrow, we’ve already eaten.
If the Queen can reject the advice of a minister on a little thing like a postage stamp, what would happen if she rejected the advice of the Prime Minister on a major matter? If the Crown personally can reject advice, then, of course, the whole democratic facade turns out to be false.
I am not a reluctant peer but a persistent commoner.
There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons.
Broadcasting is really too important to be left to the broadcasters.
If you file your waste-paper basket for fifty years, you have a public library.
I did not enter the Labour Party 47 years ago to have our manifesto written by Dr Mori, Dr Gallup and Mr Harris.
Although socialism is widely held by the establishment to be outdated, the things that are most popular in British society today are little pockets of socialism, where areas of life have been excluded from the crude operation of market forces and are protected for the benefit of the community.
We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.
I’ve made every mistake – but mistakes are how you learn.
The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much.
Choice depends on the freedom to choose and if you are shackled with debt you don’t have the freedom to choose.
When you think of the number of men in the world who hate each other, why, when two men love each other, does the church split?
Democracy is not just voting every 5 years and watching ‘Big Brother’ in between and wondering why nothing happens. Democracy is what we do and say where we live and work.
The people who have sacrificed their view in order to get to the top have very often left no footprints in the sands of time.
The Civil Service is a bit like a rusty weathercock. It moves with opinion then it stays where it is until another wind moves it in a different direction.
Encouragement is the most important thing in the world for young people, rather than league tables, which demoralise everyone.
There is good and bad in all of us and the Church uses the idea of original sin to control us by saying that, if we do not obey the bishops, we will rot in Hell.