Unless there is meaningful change in Syria and an end to the crackdown, President Assad and those around him will find themselves isolated internationally and discredited within Syria.

Britain does not normally these days play a huge part in peacekeeping.

Ambition is best tempered with self-knowledge!

Iran's continued, widespread persecution of ethnic minorities, human rights defenders and political prisoners is a disgrace and stands as a shameful indictment of Iran's leaders.

Obviously a Conservative government will always leave taxes lower than they have been under Labour. Those things go with the territory of the Conservative Party.

Let's not be afraid to speak the common sense truth: you can't have high standards without good discipline.

There's only one growth strategy: work hard.

I'm not, nor is anybody I know in government part of a nasty right wing clique.

I know people are fickle.

We have to face the reality of climate change. It is arguably the biggest threat we are facing today.

Where defining foreign policy as 'ethical' went wrong was that it implied that all decisions would be exclusive in every respect of any dealings with unethical regimes.

Parenting is one of the hardest jobs on earth.

You need diplomacy and not slogans. This is the place for wisdom, the place for seeking windows that will take you to the objective.

If it ain't broke, don't break it.

Writers were a strange sort; I knew that much from the newspapers.

Forgiving other people who have wronged us or hurt us or embarrassed us is not easy. In fact, sometimes it seems impossible. But that is what God did for us and what He asks us to do for others.

I don't believe in censorship.

You deal. You survive. You grow up and you build a career. And you remember these big/little hardships. They make you human.

Nothing is given to you.

New ideas are not born in a conforming environment.

I do know that I'm responsible not for what happens, but for what I make of it.