War is not an independent phenomenon but the continuation of politics by different means.

I have some very personal feelings about politics but I don't get into it because I do comedy already.

Amnesty is a terrible policy and it's terrible politics. It's a terrible policy because you are rewarding people for breaking the law.

I mean I went to a church school when I was younger and imbibed a certain amount of religion then but it was really in university that I got interested in religion and politics at the same time. I don't think as if it were one moment of conversion but my spiritual journey really began then.

In no relationship at the top of any walk of life is it always easy least of all in politics which matters so much and which is conducted in such a piercing spotlight.

One thing I have frankly decided is that when it comes to political reform we have two conservative parties in British politics. Both the Labour and Conservative parties have constantly and repeatedly failed to honour promises they have made about reforming cleaning modernising our clapped-out system.

Whether one believes or not religion is as real a force in the life of the world as economics or politics and it demands fair-minded attention. Even if you think the entire religious enterprise is at best misguided and at worst counterproductive it remains vital inspiring great good and sometimes great evil.

Once the cry and the cause of a generation of progressives to make America safer fairer and cleaner 'regulation' is now a dirty word in our politics. Even Democrats are quick to talk about cutting regulations Republicans hate them with - how to put it? - evangelical fervor.

It would be great if politics were fact-based but it is not and it is surely not nuance-based. What works in a classroom or a think tank does not work on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Obama sometimes seems to be running the Brookings Institution not the country.

Without alienation there can be no politics.

I am a sportsman and not a politician. I am a sportsman and will always remain one. I am not going to enter politics giving up cricket which is my life. I will continue to play cricket.

I don't compromise my principles for politics.

Everyone wants to demagogue everyone else. That may be good politics but it's awful policy.

In politics an organized minority is a political majority.

When a Cabinet Minister who is sacked for telling lies is re-appointed in the face of every constitutional convention only for the same man to be sacked again from the same Cabinet for the same offence by the same Prime Minister no wonder the public are cynical about politics.

I'm looking forward to the day when America will mature to the point that we are a color-blind society. I'm not so sure that in politics that will ever be reality because politics has a way of separating us based on skin color.

I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don't blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life.