Politics Is A Highly Tribal Business.

I Think That The Days When Newspaper Barons Could Basically Click Their Fingers And Governments Would Snap To Attention Have Gone.

Actually, The Curious Thing Is That The More You Become A Subject Of Admiration Or Loathing, The More You're Examined Under A Microscope, The Distance Seems To Open Up Between Who You Really Are And The Portrayals That People Impose On You.

You Have A Political And Media Elite Who Have An Idiom By Which They Describe Politics. It's Highly, Highly Polarised. It's Right, Left, Red, Blue, Up, Down, Victorious, Crushed.

I Have Got Instincts That, I Think, Are Very Much In Tune With People's Very Keen Sense To See Something Different. I Did Not Dream Of Being In Politics Since I Was Knee-high To A Grasshopper. I Was Not Involved In Student Politics, Or Not In That Partisan Way.

I Totally Accept That It's A Legitimate Criticism That When You Are Involved In The Day-to-day Scrum Of Government That What Can Get Lost Is The Narrative, The Hymn Sheet The Song That Inspires And Lifts People's Sights.