I was left £50 when I was ten by a fairly distant cousin, which my father invested in GEC shares on my behalf. I became interested in the market and was given some more shares by my father, which is when I began looking to see how the shares were performing and learning how to read company reports, balance sheets, and so on in order to gauge that."

The appetite of the British people for a long-term involvement in another Middle Eastern conflict could not be weaker. There is no wish to have any further long-term obligations of a military kind that do not affect the most direct national interest.

I'm not interested in the past, I'm interested in the future. Europe is past.

It is of considerable importance that politicians stick to their commitments or do not make such commitments in the first place.

One of the statistics that always amazes me is the approval of the Chinese government, not elected, is over 80 percent. The approval of the U.S. government, fully elected, is 19 percent. Well, we elected these people and they didn't elect those people. Isn't it supposed to be different? Aren't we supposed to like the people that we elected?

If the administration asks for $5 and Congress appropriates $4, that's what they get. If the government creates a subterfuge by going outside the government to raise money through a private entity, that's a violation of the law.

Democracy is something that you must learn each generation. It has to be taught.

As an academic, a great deal of my time is spent writing, with very little in meetings. In government, the premium is placed on figuring things out through discussing them with other people.