“Failure in Afghanistan would have profound consequences for our national security. It would undermine the NATO alliance structure that has been the bedrock of Britain’s defence for the last 60 years… I will not allow this to happen on my watch.”

My heroes are the non-commissioned officers. If I had another life thats what Id be – a regimental sergeant major or a similar rank. Thats where the spirit of the armed forces is.

I got a tooth bust by somebody who decided they didn’t like me and I thought the moustache hid a scar on my lip. It’s true that people were told facial hair was not appreciated by the British public, but I just decided to keep the moustache.

Our policy is European and Euro-Atlantic integration. There is no substitute for NATO.

Putin has as one of his core objectives fracturing NATO, which is one of the greatest military alliances in the history of the world.

Whether [Turkey] is a NATO country or not, it doesn’t have the right to invade any other country according to the international law or to any other moral value.

NATO was constructed on the – with the reason, whether one believes it or not, that it was going to defend Western Europe from Russian assault.

Once the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, that reason was gone. So, first question: why does NATO exist?

They’re a great power arguably. But at the same time we’re not going to give any ground. We have to defend our NATO allies.