When I joined Labour in 1982, I didn't feel I belonged to a party born to power. My repeated experience was of bitter and repeated defeats.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.
I joined the Labour party because I believed in equality, in freedom of speech and in tolerance, compassion and understanding for people, irrespective of their background and views. In whatever I decide to do in the future I will hold to those principles.
I've been a member of the Labour Party sixty five years, and I remain in it, but I think it's all about campaigning for justice and peace, and if you do that, you get a lot of support.
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.
My first real experience of ambition was as party leader. It was my ambition for Labour to win, in which event I would be prime minister.
I'm a solid Labour party supporter. I aspired to be a Labour MP, but it's difficult to make the leap from the Foreign Office.
I never really grew up being political or Labour. It was just a realisation that where you were born mattered. That how you spoke mattered... who you knew mattered.
What people should understand is that I adore the Labour party.
People know where I stand in the Labour party and what I believe in.
I'm not a political thinker, but I've just always thought of myself as a Labour supporter. I was a great fan of Tony Blair. He sent me a letter before I swam the Channel to wish me luck.