Today the demands are for even higher standards in the quality of care, for greater flexibility and convenience in treatment times, and for more prevention through screening and health checks.

People rightly want our political leaders - on all sides - to concentrate on minimising the damage to jobs, living standards and our savings from the banking crisis.

At times unpopular measures are needed in order to change behaviour.

Like many of my friends and colleagues, I can't get enough of Obama news; latest polling, speeches, visits, reaction of world leaders.

There's a loss of faith in the banking system that for so long has been the backbone of prosperity and growth.

Funding for sports (and the arts) are often the first things facing the chop in difficult times.

In politics, the number of women in the cabinet has fallen and, if current poll trends continue and Labour loses a number of marginal seats, the number of female MPs is likely to drop significantly.

Indeed, when all parties campaign effectively the overall effect is to push up voting rates, as you see in tight marginal seats or close general elections. That must be good for democracy.

At its most basic the democratic contract is a simple one: the right to vote comes with a responsibility to society, through tax payments and citizenship.

Sixteen- and 17-year-olds pay taxes and can join the army, so surely they should in turn be given their right to vote.

In Scotland, the indication is that for the Westminster elections at least, Labour voters are satisfied with their government.

What's the rule for fighting? Hit the soft parts with your hand and the hard parts with a utensil?

I have not taken a position on that nuclear option. My view is I'm not going to do anything until I come to that bridge. I'm not going to jump off the bridge until I come to it

I'm having too much fun today to worry about tomorrow.

I think that maybe in every company today there is always at least one person who is going crazy slowly.

Typically [professors] live in their heads. … They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads. It’s a way of getting their head to meetings.

I'm very grateful that I had work to do. I may have thrown myself off a building.

Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation

I will love you for ever, whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead I'll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again.

Life begins as a quest of the child for the man, and ends as a journey by the man to rediscover the child.

I felt myself melting into the shadows like the negative of a person I'd never seen before in my life.