I thought I was going to be killed. The casualties were so heavy, it was just a given. I learned to take each day, each mission, as it came. That's an attitude I've carried into my professional life. I take each case, each job, as it comes.

But tending machinery was one thing; defining what we were trying to do and why we were doing it, and developing ways to measure how well the job was done - this was something else again.

I said the first concern of the administration of justice must, of course, be the individual. The second concern is the truth.

The idea of being in the State Department was exciting. On the other hand, I always had in the back of my mind going into politics. If I stayed in Washington, I might end up a government hack.

At 16, out of school and pregnant, my own life could have been written off. It was the help I had from some of the then Labour government's policies such as Sure Start that turned it around.

The government should not be in control of the private sector. You create opportunity, you create business, you create development, you hand it to the investor and start creating something new.

A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself, so that those who govern can govern. But what is the best that we can offer to those who govern? Prayer!

Now, I learned soon enough, that among the three, two don't trust the third one - the third one is the government. Both industry and unions feel the government is a talking organization and a spending organization.