I don't agree with all-male leaderships. Men cannot be left to run things on their own. I think it's a thoroughly bad thing to have a men-only leadership.

I know we will look back on this and think how odd it was we were championing the rights of lone mothers to bring up their children on benefit.

I was aware that everybody said I was going to be a vast mega-flop, and that William Hague was just oh-so intelligent, and oh such a great parliamentarian, and therefore so different from me! So I thought, I must deprive them of the satisfaction of proving themselves right.

Is this the situation in the modern Conservative party? That women should be seen and not heard?

National leaders who find themselves wilting under the withering criticisms by members of the media, would do well not to take such criticism personally but to regard the media as their allies in keeping the government clean and honest, its services.

The political lives of tyrants play out human affairs with a special intensity: the death of a democratic leader long after his retirement is a private matter, but the death of a tyrant is always a political act that reflects the character of his power.

I was a quarterback in pee-wee football. I always wanted to be quarterback. They're the leaders, they make the calls. It didn't work out because I didn't have the arm. I also played wide receiver my senior year in high school.

It's a different era. Our job now is to show leadership and vision and to help the next generation of artists.