Our party has known great, great days. But we have no God-given right to survive, let alone to succeed.

We need to show that we know and understand and can reflect today's Britain. Today we don't.

It is simply the view, and a view I think shared by most members of the party, that it is very difficult to have a leader that does not command the support of the parliamentary party.

I feel fantastically excited that we have a leader who fought for the leadership without compromising his quite challenging view that the party has to change.

So our problem is not Labour, it is us, is making us attractive enough to gain disillusioned Labour support and to compete effectively with the Lib Dems for those loose votes.

Everyone now claims to be a moderniser and it's obvious, really. I mean, no one now says 'We need to go backwards... to the days of Lord Salisbury'.

The party at its best has always been a modern party.

We should be the natural home for young mothers. But we're not. Because too often we sound like people who think the only good mother is a married mother.

If we do what we think is right, not try to point-score, people will begin to trust us.

The problem we have is not Labour, in however it is configured.

David Cameron's message of change, optimism and hope is in tune with what Britain wants today

Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.

Doobie always wanted to see the badge. It was shiny, and he was eight.

Some girls are intimidated by my height, obviously. But a lot of girls do like it, so that's cool.

The man of knowledge in our time is bowed down under a burden he never imagined he would ever have: the overproduction of truth that cannot be consumed.

It's possible for the heavyweight champion of the world to be with one woman.

Here is another miserable mental image I will have to catalog and make room for.

I still see myself as a bit of a cottage industry. Being in a room creating stuff and seeing if anyone wants it, as opposed to going to work for someone.

The straight roads are the roads of progress, the crooked roads are thee roads of genius.

"It's gonna be okay," I said. It was the first time in a long time that I believed it. "It will."

Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar.