Christmas gives us the opportunity to pause and reflect on the important things around us - a time when we can look back on the year that has passed and prepare for the year ahead.

I believe that in life, you have to give things your best shot, do your best. You have to focus on what needs to be done, do the right thing, not the popular thing.

There are some really good experiments with the youth offending service, joining up youth offending teams with the youth justice board, and good local authority and primary care trusts working together.

Human nature is you get carried away, so we have to protect ourselves from ourselves.

I've been fortunate when in government to have a car at my disposal, which takes away the nightmare of getting a taxi.

The Home Office culture was one of being just above the problem, of hovering just out of reach of knowing what was going on on the ground, whether it was crime or immigration.

If I pleaded guilty to a mistake while I was home secretary, it wasn't that I didn't get tough - my God, I put immigration and security officials on French soil for the first time.

It is feasible for someone who comes from a privileged background to understand the privilege they have had and to use the formal political arena in a way that would disperse power and engage with people in their own lives.

And we think that our citizens and yours would be very angry if they thought that we hadn't taken every possible step for prevention and then for joint action in the likelihood of those who threaten our lives and our well- being, taking action at the same time.

I did not in late November start the plethora of linking my private life with public events again.

I have built my reputation on honesty, I have sometimes been too honest.

I love the walk although my security team weren't too sure to begin with but I was anxious to be able to lead a near normal life. Whilst walking I do get the chance to meet people and keep in touch.

Judy, we think that since the 11th of September, 2001, we've faced a similar heightened threat level. And we've been enhancing both the exchange of intelligence and security information and the assessment of that information, because that's the crucial element.

Yes, it will go through the disciplines that all puppies go through including house training and puppy walking, then at twelve month old it the training becomes a lot more rigorous which has to be done carefully otherwise you are in danger of stressing the dog.

As education and employment secretary in 1997, I inherited hundreds of schools where the roofs leaked, the windows rattled, and they relied entirely on outside toilets.

Changes to parliamentary procedure won't transform the lives of the people whom I represent. Decentralising, devolving decision-making and renewing civil society will.

It's not just parliament that requires radical modernisation. It's our democratic processes.

But any perception of this application being speeded up requires me to take responsibility.

I don't think anyone can say I have said one thing in public and done another in private.

My job as Labour Home Secretary is to ensure people are prepared to listen to us when we take on our opponents across the political spectrum.

I said it's impossible to have an amnesty without ID cards and a clean database, because you firstly don't have any incentives for people to actually come up front and register, and make themselves available, and secondly you have no means of tracking them.

Simple numbers of people of a particular age tell us nothing about the condition of their health, the environment in which they live, and the support systems they can afford to pay for.

We must draw on our early roots and remind people why the Labour party was created and who it sought to represent. We have never been a sectional party promoting self-interest, but instead a force for engaging self-reliance and self-determination.

We must draw on our early roots and remind people why the Labour party was created and who it sought to represent. We have never been a sectional party promoting self-interest, but instead a force for engaging self-reliance and self-determination.