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" 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. "

David Miliband

Small

Politics

Confidence

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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. "

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

" The test of leadership for David Cameron was actually to bring the British Conservative Party back in to the mainstream. "

" You know, you only get to live life once, so there are two things that that yields. One is that there's no point in crying over spilt milk, but secondly you hate wasting time, energy, and whatever talent you've got. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

David Miliband

Always

Personal

" I do not speak Hebrew, but I understand that it has no word for 'history.' The closest word for it is memory. "

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

" Foreign policy is inseparable from domestic policy now. Is terrorism foreign policy or domestic policy? It's both. It's the same with crime, with the economy, climate change. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I don't think I've ever been accused of being faddish. I'm more Marks & Spencer than Ted Baker. "

David Miliband

Think

Being

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

" If you want to fight against a declining trend, you've got to have a much bigger bazooka. "

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

" We keep the terrorist threat to the United Kingdom under very careful scrutiny. We think it's right to keep the public informed about the general threat level. "

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" The two biggest threats to international security in 2013 are Iran getting a nuclear weapon, and Iran being bombed to stop it getting a nuclear weapon. Both would precipitate a long and dangerous conflict in an already unstable Middle East. Both would be a disaster. "

" I've committed myself to serve my constituents in South Shields and I have committed myself to British politics. "

" One of the jewels in the crown of Labour's time in office was the rescue of the National Health Service. As the Commonwealth Fund, the London School of Economics and the Nuffield Foundation have all shown, health reforms as well as additional investment were essential to improved outcomes, especially for poorer patients. "

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

" I am the 'change Britain' candidate. We can only change Britain through a united Labour Party and I am the unity candidate. I have got support from the Left and the Right of the party. "

" 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. "

" 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. "