I've always said the left needs to be ready for government.

Changing leaders is pointless if the same policies are pursued.

When I had the heart attack I had one stent inserted, which was great.

We urgently need a major programme of investment in renewable energy generation to tackle climate change.

I think that I was the first MP to call for the nationalisation of Northern Rock, although that is hardly surprising because I have been calling for the nationalisation of the financial sector for 30 years or more.

Heathrow expansion is an object lesson in the dominance of a rapacious sector of industry over government decision-making.

We believe that leaders should be following the masses. We only ran in leadership campaigns to get our ideas across, to use it as a platform.

Only the political process offers the real prospect of a united Ireland at peace with itself.

New Labour has deregulated, liberalised and privatised - but every time the private sector fails it is the taxpayer who pays.

The worry in Labour circles is that, when pressed, Gordon Brown instinctively moved to cut the benefits of the poor rather than upset businesses and the wealthy.

When I was a GLC councillor, we won and held London as Labour was imploding nationally - running popular campaigns against the Thatcher Government and fighting on our own agenda.

Our objectives are socialist. That means an irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people.

The arrogant view that young people don't count because they don't vote has thankfully been smashed for ever.

What Gramsci is all about is hegemony: you win the battle of ideas and it dominates.

The interests of big corporations have so permeated government that its major decisions are indistinguishable from the boardroom demands of the leading companies in each commercial sector.

We have to face up to the fact that without the armed uprising in 1916 Britain would not have withdrawn from southern Ireland.

It may sound corny in a cynical age but literally generations of our people have given much of their lives to establishing and cherishing the Labour party because they believed what the party told them when they joined.

You can't change the world through the parliamentary system.

If bitter party name-calling turns people off then smear politics just destroys all credibility in the aims of politicians, the role of political parties and the political process itself.

The plundering for profit of the world's natural resources has threatened the very sustainability of the planet.

Millions of people feel ignored by the political establishment.

There'll be creative business leaders but actually, when it comes down to it, they can't do anything unless they're part of a collective. Unless they've got that wealth creator, that engineer and that work person, that skilled person at the bench to fulfil that idea... they're nothing.

If we need more demand in the economy then protect people in work and raise the incomes of those on low incomes who need to spend, such as the low paid, pensioners and families with children.

Democratic government requires the consent of the governed.