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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.

What people should understand is that I adore the Labour party.

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.

I'm still batting away on my politics for the Labour Party. I'm much further to the left of them than I used to be, but that's because they've moved, not me.

People know where I stand in the Labour party and what I believe in.

I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.

In a way I'm almost more rueful about the notion of having a non-ideological Labour party than I am about the personality of Tony Blair.

I have moved on from being a British parliamentarian, I have moved on from being a New Labour politician, I have moved on from being the supporter in the active day-to-day sense of Tony Blair.

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.

Well, I feel that everybody in the country knows me. I think people know who I am, and that I'm deputy leader of the Labour party, and that I'm out there talking about their big choice for the future.