Des Browne

What you need to do in conflict resolution is to bring the people who believe that the answer to their political ambitions will be achieved through violence into a frame of mind that they accept that their political ambitions will be delivered by politics. ”

I will do what the Prime Minister asks me to do; that is my consistent approach to politics and to service. ”

The ability to send applications by post allows fraudsters to apply in false or stolen identities without fear of arrest and to make multiple applications in the hope of getting one through. It allows the possibility of passports being applied for with the photographs of people who are outside the U.K. and seeking to enter illegally. ”

There are some days when history is made. Yesterday was one - and I was honoured to be in Washington to watch Barack Obama being sworn in. During his soaring inaugural address, the new president gazed over a teeming National Mall that was crowded with more than a million people. ”

I do not believe it makes sense to say that nuclear weapons are inherently evil. In certain circumstances, they can play a positive role - as they have in the past. But clearly they have a power to do great harm. ”

Whatever he does in office, no man can live up to the high expectations of the world, but we have been changed by his election. Obama's inauguration is a historic global achievement, a major milestone in the journey of a powerful nation. ”

It will require a sustained military and financial commitment by the international community, working with the government of Afghanistan, to create the environment in which enduring democratic institutions can be established. ”

While we are deploying troops in their thousands, we lose the chance to build up their basic skills. ”

The Helmand area used to be the breadbasket of Afghanistan. There was a time when a substantial number of the grapes we ate came from Afghanistan. ”

With the enhancements to the security of the passport document itself that biometric technology will bring, it is time to make equivalent enhancements to the process of establishing identity before issuing passports. ”