Having served in eleven Parliaments, it would be difficult to describe this as a maiden speech. It would be like Elizabeth Taylor appearing at her next wedding in a white gown.

There is no final victory, as there is no final defeat. There is just the same battle. To be fought, over and over again. So toughen up, bloody toughen up.

The way a government treats refugees is very instructive.

If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.

I think there are two ways in which people are controlled - first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them.

Britain today is suffering from galloping obsolescence.

The Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it - a bit like Christians in the Church of England.

We are paying a heavy political price for 20 years in which, as a party, we have played down our criticism of capitalism and soft-peddled our advocacy of socialism

The Tory party is the enemy of democracy.

I think very often the boat-rockers turn out to be the people who are building the craft

The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen.

Knowledge and education are the key to this human tragedy which is a bonfire of hate fueled by ignorance.

Wham, bam, thank you Ma'am.

Television and film are our libraries now. Our history books.

I drink so the others become interesting.

I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.

When you fight corruption, it fights back.

He must have a truly romantic nature, for he weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about.

I won't talk about who I'm dating. Because it's dumb. It leads to nowhere good. I let everybody else in the media do that for me. It takes the responsibility off my shoulders!

People consider the harms they inflict to be justified and forgettable, and the harms they suffer to be unprovoked and grievous.