I Have Had The Advantage Of A

Experience Is The Only Real Teacher And If You Keep A Diary You Get Three Bites At Educating Yourself - When It Happens, When You Write It Down, And When You Reread It And Realise You Were Wrong. Making Mistakes Is Part Of Life. The Only Things I Would Feel Ashamed Of Would Be If I Had Said Things I Hadn't Believed In Order To Get On. Some Politicians Do Do That.

No Medieval Monarch In The Whole Of British History Ever Had Such Power As Every Modern British Prime Minister Has In His Or Her Hands. Nor Does Any American President Have Power Approaching This

There's People On The Left Who Say, The Ballot Box Is A Waste Of Time. Forget Them. When Mandela Voted For The First Time At The Age Of 76 There Was A Lot Of Grown Men, Including Me, Wept Buckets. That Was What It Was About. It Doesn't Solve Things, But It Gives You The Mechanism To Hold To Account The People With Power.

There Is No Connection Between Imperialism And Democracy. I Mean When We Ran An Empire Which We Did When I Was Born, There Was No Democracy Anywhere.

If One Meets A Powerful Person - Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin Or Bill Gates - Ask Them Five Questions: 'what Power Have You Got? Where Did You Get It From? In Whose Interests Do You Exercise It? To Whom Are You Accountable? And How Can We Get Rid Of You?' If You Cannot Get Rid Of The People Who Govern You, You Do Not Live In A Democratic System.