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" John Major put the 'er' back into Conservative, David Cameron's put the 'Con' into Conservative - and Norman Lamont put the 'vat' into Conservative! "

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" The big risk to British lives in 2013 is in Afghanistan. Our troops, diplomats and aid workers have made a big contribution there. But while there is an end date for Western engagement, 2014, there isn't a proper end game. "

" But for me, my personal relations, my personal family relations, are very important, and we've always tried to make sure that the public and the private are kept separate. "

" Communism was meant to be an alternative religion. "

" I mean, Britain is a country of successful Muslim businesspeople, teachers and educators, journalists. So, we have to say very strongly that the two million plus Muslims in Britain, the vast bulk of them make a huge contribution to our society, and they actually make it the vibrant society it is. "

" People want more power over their own lives. That's not just true in Britain, it's true around the world. "

" The problems that the world faces - from nuclear proliferation to climate change - can't be tackled by the West alone. They need a coalition of not just West and East, but they need a coalition of Christian and Jew and Muslim. "

" You have to believe that it's through politics that societies can lead social and economic and political change. "

" The 1970s - I was ten in 1975 - were a bad decade in all sorts of ways but the middle class had comfortable assumptions about the prospects for its children. The middle class was smaller then; it was a much less competitive Britain, less meritocratic. "

" I can't admit to myself that the creation of a Palestinian state won't happen. What I know is that with each passing year it gets more and more difficult to happen, not least because there is more and more bloodshed, generation upon generation. "

" In Britain, the centrally prescribed welfare to work system short-changes the young unemployed. Transport, housing and education are over centralised. "

" I was always brought up that if you can make a difference, you should, and if you don't it's a waste. So we'll see if I can make a difference. "

Make A Difference

" The real danger to Britain is a foreign policy that is isolationist in Europe and therefore weak in the rest of the world. "

" People feel politics isn't about their lives. "

" There is a danger for Britain as we perceive ourselves, or as we are - less wealthy, facing economic austerity - that we essentially draw back. I think there is a recoil in parts of the country, and in parts of the government actually, from the multilateral system, and I think that's dangerous and wrong. "

" Today, Labour has a disruptive economic narrative - that Britain needs fundamental change in its market structure and culture to compete in the modern world. "

" The American idea that everyone graduates high school at 18 is a good one. "

" Everything about my politics has been about the future. "

" The whole of government needs to contribute to the shared goal of restructuring the British economy. But that means taking on the myth that the Treasury either knows best or can run it all. It just doesn't. "

" Successful economies in the modern world are not sheepish about the power and responsibility of the state. "

" I've learnt that, sometimes, how others see you is not the same as how you see yourself. I've learnt about how you can be multitasking - and sometimes other people see that you're multitasking. And that's not very nice for them. "

" The biggest novelty of 2013 will be new leadership in China. Very little is known about the views of the new leaders - who will rule the country for ten years. But we do know they're the first generation of Chinese leaders who have spent the majority of their lives in a China 'opening up' to the rest of the world. "

" One thing that I feel very, very strongly is that we talk about Islamic countries, Islamic people, Islamic leaders, as either moderates or extremists. It's almost like there are only two categories of Muslims. And actually, that doesn't show respect. It shows lack of understanding of the diversity of Muslim thought. "

" My favourite poem is called 'Roots and Wings' - it's a very moving poem about how if you've got real roots you can fly. "

" History is information. Memory is part of your identity. "

" Good politics starts with empathy, proceeds to analysis, then sets out values and establishes the vision, before getting to the nitty-gritty of policy solutions. "

" What is the big political issue for Britain at the moment? Without wishing to sound portentous, it is about whether we can build a social democratic settlement, whether we can lay the political and cultural foundations for the next several years. "

" My advice is very simple: if you can win a small battle, it gives you confidence in the political process to take on bigger battles, and so it is very much a bottom-up grass-roots way of doing politics. "

" And the truth is, those who are terrorists only have to succeed once, and those of us who are trying to build an inclusive society have to succeed every time. "

" In the end, human history is made up of all our decisions. "

" The biggest opportunity in 2013 is in Africa. It has seven out of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world. In Nigeria alone there are 100 million people with mobile phones. In total, 300 million Africans - five times the population of Britain - are in the middle class. "