“I got to know him well as Vice President to Ronald Reagan. And George rang me up and said, “Oh, Bob,” he said, “I’m having trouble with Brian [Mulroney].” He said, “He’s got a big wheat trade with Iraq, and he doesn’t want to upset that.” I said, “You leave it with me.””

And it did seem to me that one way that we could bring the apartheid regime down would be if we did mount an effective investment sanction.

The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.

I find a fence a very uncomfortable place to squat my bottom.

[John Howard] led the Government. They had the numbers, and just basically automatically went along with the Americans.

I think there are a number of reasons, not least of which is the personality of the Queen [ Elizabeth II]. It’s very easy to underrate her significance.

You’ve got to remember the Cold War was a very real thing then, so the relationship with the United States was very, very important.

We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.

[ Elizabeth II] has immersed herself, in the sense [that] she can speak intelligently about any and all members of the Commonwealth and she has played a role.

One other thing: at the meeting in Canada, [there was] the coup in Fiji. This comes to an important part of the Commonwealth: the role of the Queen [Elizabeth II]. I had absolutely just enormous respect for her as leader of the Commonwealth.

Geoffrey [Howe] and I were mates, and he disagreed with [ Margaret Thatcher] position. So, we cooperated surreptitiously.

The first meeting in 1983 was held in India and I was very off put by her. I just couldn’t abide her, basically.

We [ with Brian Mulroney and Rajiv Gandhi] went to the meeting in Canada [the 1987 Vancouver CHOGM] and I said to them there that sanctions weren’t working; they were just being busted.

The world will not wait for us.

And that’s what brought the regime down. The last South African Finance Minister, Barend du Plessis, went on record as saying that it was the investment sanctions that put the final nail in the coffin of apartheid.

An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption.

As far as we’re concerned, there was no sporting organisation [that] should have anything to do with the sport in South Africa.

Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as it was yesterday when you and I laid wreaths at the Garden of Remembrance.

What I’m encouraging President Trump and the Cabinet and congressional leaders to do, is let’s keep our promises. Let’s do what we said we would do, and that’s what each and every one of you can hold all of us accountable for.

I treat him [Donald Trump] as an entertainer. I laugh it off. It’s like going to the circus and seeing the acrobats and the dancing bears. He’s willing to say things that are patently false.

If you elect me president, we will have a president that believes America is the greatest country in the world and we will have a president that acts like it.

When Donald Trump’s projects go under, the first people that don’t get paid are the contractors that he’s – some of whom have gone bankrupt.

Move over to Egypt. Once again, the [Barack] Obama administration, encouraged by Republicans, toppled [Hosni] Mubarak who had been a reliable ally of the United States, of Israel, and in its place, [Mohamed] Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood came in, a terrorist organization.

Our problem with President Obama isn’t that he’s a bad person. By all accounts, he too is a good husband, and a good father – and thanks to lots of practice, a pretty good golfer.

This man [Barack Obama] does not have the interests of our country. That’s not his agenda. His agenda is to bring us down to a third-world country.