“And that will increasingly dawn on people. The demand for controlling the commanding heights will grow.”

You see, another reason for nationalization was that private ownership meant fragmentation.

It was very much a cry for democratic control at that time. Above all, breaking the accomplished power of a few people to rule the lives of everybody else.

Why get rid of Chamberlain to put in Halifax? It’s like getting rid of the organ-grinder to put in the monkey.

Large motorway flyovers are the cathedrals of the modern world.

And what always struck me about that war period was how even Churchill had to talk socialism to keep up people’s morale.

He described how, as a boy of 14, his dad had been down the mining pit, his uncle had been down the pit, his brother had been down the pit, and of course he would go down the pit.

Britain in the 1970s was undoubtedly an economic mess because of the oil price explosion.

I remember people who’d had a lot of hardship during the war. They’d thought we’d won.

I will fight for what I believe in until I drop dead. And that’s what keeps you alive.

Think, think, think. It will hurt like hell at first, but you’ll get used to it.

I have never consciously exploited the fact that I am a woman. I wouldn’t dare try that even if I knew how to. I have too much respect for my male colleagues to think they would be particualrly impressed.

In politics, guts is all.