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" We've got to get back to old-fashioned politics that's in touch with the people we seek to represent and to avoid self-inflicted wounds. "

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" Human nature is you get carried away, so we have to protect ourselves from ourselves. "

" I should have been a Trappist monk. "

" I prefer a positive view of freedom, drawing on another tradition of political thinking that goes all the way back to the ancient Greek polis. "

" When I first came into parliament, there was, on average, a by-election every three months - due not to MPs bailing out, but because of the death rate. "

" We need to reaffirm that politics is not merely compatible with economic progress and development in the 21st century, but essential to it. "

" I am totally in favour of reform - but it must be reform that changes the nature of British politics, not simply the makeup or operation of parliament. "

" We have a media that presents every politician as being as bad as the next. There is no distinguishing between one good idea or another; no explanation of why constitutional change should be uppermost in the minds of the people I represent. "

" Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, in hosting the G20 summit and in the budget, must display the same boldness in tackling the instability at home that they do in promoting a worldwide answer to the global meltdown. "

" If I pleaded guilty to a mistake while I was home secretary, it wasn't that I didn't get tough - my God, I put immigration and security officials on French soil for the first time. "

" Despite being in public life, I value my own privacy immensely and would be as concerned as anyone else if I thought my mobile phone records could be easily available to officials across government. "

" Being a Labour home secretary in the 21st century means fighting a constant battle against both extreme Right and Left. "

" Simple numbers of people of a particular age tell us nothing about the condition of their health, the environment in which they live, and the support systems they can afford to pay for. "

" To punish MPs because of the distance they live from London - those with fast train journeys quite close to London as well as those at some distance from both the capital or an appropriate airport - is perverse, but also dangerous to democracy. "

" Judy, we think that since the 11th of September, 2001, we've faced a similar heightened threat level. And we've been enhancing both the exchange of intelligence and security information and the assessment of that information, because that's the crucial element. "

" Back in 2003, when I was home secretary, I introduced the victim surcharge on offenders to substantially expand the support available and, I hoped, the protection of witnesses who were brave enough to come forward. "

" Politics is only worthwhile if you are doing what you believe, regardless of the slings and arrows. "

" I have always been honest about my recollection of events. "

" I have built my reputation on honesty, I have sometimes been too honest. "

" I don't like prolonged, highly expensive commissions, especially if they are chaired by judges. We seem to have overwhelming faith in judges. "

" We must look to an open, tolerant, inclusive England, which embraces the values of a Britain that still leads the world in terms of an open democracy, as well as an understanding of the needs for responsibilities and obligations to run alongside the affirmation of individual rights. "

" I'm a great aficionado of history. I was deeply affected by seeing the disintegration of any chance of democracy coping with fascism in the Weimar republic, where woolly-minded, well-meaning liberalism actually allowed the forces of darkness to use democracy, to exploit democracy, to overturn democracy. "

" I didn't come into politics to have to deal with the issue of clandestine entry, illegal working, or an asylum system that allows a free run for right-wing bigots. "

" If you have a sense of irony or humour, you're usually cut down, as you're usually distorted or misinterpreted. So it does lead to us being slightly more dour and staid and predictable than would otherwise be the case, which I personally find quite frustrating - because if you don't laugh occasionally in my job, you cry most of the time. "

" We need dynamic and thriving businesses and a skilled and adaptable labour force to produce competitiveness and prosperity. "

" Without the political parties and the volunteering work of their members day in, day out, we would have a very different sort of politics and society. "

" In an ageing society, it makes sense to support older adults to develop new skills, prolonging their working lives. "

" I'm convinced that quite a lot of young people, when they get in trouble with the law, it's a cry for help there. Because it's not that they go out to offend. It's that their behaviour is self-parading, it's the big 'I'. And sometimes that means they're really lacking in confidence. "

" I'm in favour of a sensible development of response units and their deployment in any circumstance where there may be a risk to the officers themselves or the neighbourhood they're in. I'm not in favour of a blanket arming of the police. "

" We need to use all the resources at our disposal in order to prosper. We need more employment, and we need employment to be spread more fairly across society. "

" The democratic state can sometimes abuse its power as much as those who seek to destroy it abuse fundamental rights and democratic practices. "