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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Changing leaders is pointless if the same policies are pursued.

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

The U.K. needs to diversify - to become the technological as well as the financial centre of Europe.

When you talk to people about their practical life, for example when they're at work, like the rail industry, the RMT members know better than anyone else how to run their industry.

My ambition is to learn to play the trombone. My wife pulls my leg about it. I'll find time, my neighbours might not appreciate it but I'm going to try.

If we as a party are serious about devolution, then we must respect councils and nations enough to determine their own agenda.

If allowed, democracy does actually work.

New Labour has created a society increasingly oppressed by the worry of personal debt.

The assertion that the war in Iraq has had no role in increasing the terrorist threat to Britain is clearly just intellectually unsustainable.

In terms of mainstream media it's very difficult to break through if you're on the left.

Getting political representation is important, but change comes through using direct action, campaigning, and trade unions.

If Marx was alive during the Stalinist period, he'd be first to be in the gulag.

Meeting the challenges of the future requires a state that can think and act strategically.

I'll let the racket do the talking.

I was a different kind of player as a kid and didn't do too much shouting and screaming. If things didn't go my way, I tended to get a bit overwhelmed. All I wanted to do was cry on my mom's shoulder. I didn't know how to handle defeat in front of a crowd, and I didn't want to be the loser.

I think it's the mark of a great player to be confident in tough situations.

Everybody loves success, but they hate successful people.

The important thing is to learn a lesson every time you lose. Life is a learning process and you have to try to learn what's best for you. Let me tell you, life is not fun when you're banging your head against a brick wall all the time.

The older I get, the better I used to be.

I was a Yankee fan until 1981. That was the year the Yankees were two up on the Dodgers and lost four straight. And George Steinbrenner apologized to the city.

I like John McCain, or he seems like a cool guy in a lot of ways. I don't agree with a lot of his policies, but he still seems like a cool guy.

What I've realised is that you can run miles, jump on a bike, lift weights, and all that other garbage, but the bottom line is that you get in tennis shape by playing tennis. You build the right muscles, and I don't believe people can do it as successfully any other way.

It means a lot to be back in New York. Particularly since one of the last senior event scheduled in the States was supposed to be here in New York. We were supposed to play in Central Park right after 9-11 and when 9-11 happened obviously things changed.

Sitting there clapping and smiling... it's difficult. You're like, 'Don't worry about it, you just double faulted, you just played a really dumb point. Keep positive.' Then more clapping. That would annoy me as a player.

Do you have any problems, other than that you're unemployed, a moron, and a dork?

What is the single most important quality in a tennis champion? I would have to say desire, staying in there and winning matches when you are not playing that well.

I went to play in Brazil when I had just turned 18 and was the world's top junior player. I got to the airport, and no one knew who I was. I couldn't speak any Portuguese, and no one spoke English. Then someone said something that resembled 'tennis,' and I went with that.

I'd like to be the commissioner of tennis, but do I want to get into politics? Sometimes I have delusions of grandeur that that would be an interesting, good thing. I'm talking about actual politics, like being a congressman, but then I see how unbelievably nasty it really is, and maybe I'm not quite knowledgeable enough to actually do it.

I'm a tell-it-like-it-is kind of person; I don't like being misled or someone not telling the truth. That upsets me.

Nadal and Roger Federer have great respect for each other. I think Novak Djokovic gets under those two guys' skin a little bit, and maybe they don't want to admit it, and I think that's, in a way, healthy.

When I felt I was rejected by my first wife, and she said, 'Some day you will thank me for this,' you know what? I do. And so, sometimes it is darkest before the dawn. You can think it is bleak and you can't see. You never know.

I don't really know why I started playing as a kid, but I grew up in Queens, New York, not too far from Forest Hills, where they played the U.S. Open in those days. I even got to be a ball boy there. Also, there was a tennis court just a block away from our house, and I'd hang out down there.

The only thing 'championship' about Wimbledon is its prestige.

I haven't seen a professional player come out of New York in over 20 years since my brother Patrick came out. Blake spent a few years in Harlem, but he moved to Connecticut when he was a kid.

When I came on the tour, I thought, 'Why don't they treat tennis players the same way they look at football players?' Because I've got news for you: when they are on the pitch, they are not saying, 'Hello, how are you?' out there.

I'd like to think I could have and should have won more, but that's not the point. And I was at the point where I was playing great tennis in the mid 80s - the type of tennis people hadn't seen before - and I was very proud of that.

The best way I knew how was to give 110% and want it more than them, and walk on the court and every moment of the match feel like it was the end of the world, in a sense. So that worked for me in a lot of ways. There were times that it hurt me, but for the most part, it helped me.

No one cares about the Davis Cup. How many people know I won five Davis Cups and seven majors, but that I rarely played the Australian Open?

I had a harsh lesson in 1996, when I lost four times to Andres Gomez on clay.

Nick Kyrgios, if you don't want to be a professional tennis player, do something else.

Women have it better in tennis than any other sport, but you shouldn't push them to play more than they're capable of playing.