"I just hope that the democratic will of the Zimbabwean people prevails. If it does we must move quickly to help restore stability and prosperity."

"Team GB's success at the Beijing Olympics can, in part, be said to have been made in Manchester. For example, all the cycling medal winners trained at Manchester's velodrome, the National Cycling Centre."

"Funding for sports (and the arts) are often the first things facing the chop in difficult times."

"The Tories and the Lib Dems talk about social mobility, but, short of winning the lottery, the only way to guarantee young people from all backgrounds the opportunity to do better and to raise aspirations is through education."

"Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds."

"Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are."

"I have always been willing to admit when I made a mistake. I made a mistake in my understanding of the composition of the Contras, not on my opposition to the Contra war."

"It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws."