Yes, there are lots of individual exceptions. But no one has ever done a study about voting intention without ascertaining that the biggest determining factor is your income and your wealth.

I have met the people who run the world, and I am not in awe of them.

The truth is, no one pays more tax than they have to.

I liked it when we had ugly politicians who droned on about issues.

This life is messy.

I have no interest in managing my financial affairs.

Most politicians aren’t allowed to express themselves any more.

I became a councillor back in 1971, so if by this stage in politics I’m making lots of big mistakes, then I shouldn’t be here.

Consultation is a good thing when people agree with you, and a waste of time when people don’t agree with you

Give me the whole world to run and then I’ll be happy. If tomorrow I was told I had to sort out the whole world‘s problems I’d sleep like a baby.

I’ve got people handling the media. I employ at the moment two people. No-one is paying income tax on the money they use to employ people.

I’m more interested in politicians who deal with human rights in their own country rather than lecture the rest of the world.

I grew up in a house with very few books.

All the politics of the post-war period was about the clash between the Soviet Union and America, and virtually all issues ended up being subordinated to that. Now, the question is, what is the most a socialist can achieve in a global economy?

If I blew my nose the Daily Express and the Daily Mail would say that I am trying to spread germ warfare.

Jewish voters are not one homogenous block.

I’ve always told the truth. I’ve often been wrong – but I’ve never knowingly lied. Not in public life. Because I don’t see the need to.

What do we do about climate change bearing down upon us?

I employed my wife for three years to sit in the attic and type up my autobiography, 700 pages, organise everywhere I go. I’m paying the normal rate of tax on the money I take out for myself.

The problem is that many MPs never see the London that exists beyond the wine bars and brothels of Westminster.

I’m never going to take the view that I should say whatever I need to say in order to achieve something. Because that implies a level of dishonesty.

The world is run by monsters and you have to deal with them. Some of them run countries, some of them run banks, some of them run news corporations.

Press TV is one of the few TV channels anywhere in the West that fairly presents the Palestinian case.

The civil service are risk averse.

If Voting Changed Anything They’d Abolish It

I undertake that, in the exercise of my functions of that office I will have regard to any guidance with respect to ethical standards issued by the secretary of state under Section 66 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999.

If I was courting the Muslim vote, I wouldn’t have put establishing the partnership ceremony at the forefront of my first term, would I? I go all around London advocating lesbian and gay rights.

To tackle climate change you don’t have to reduce your quality of life, but you do have to change the way you live

Polling in a general election is pretty accurate, because turnout is usually high.

I would like all newspapers to become workers‘ co-operatives.

I loathe and detest all this trivialisation of politics.

I am not against Israel, I am against Zionists.

There isn’t much about my life that’s been particularly conventional.

You can’t expect to work for the Daily Mail group and have the rest of society treat with you respect as a useful member of society, because you are not.

Working with the Jewish community is essential to me and what I stand for.

I think it’s much more important to keep people in work than have pay rises.

The market is a brilliant system for the exchange of goods and services, but it doesn’t protect the environment unless it’s regulated, it doesn’t train your workforce unless it’s regulated, and it doesn’t give you the long-term investment you want.

If voting changed anything, they’d abolish it.

I came into politics because I wished to change things. You can’t do that by lying to people; you have to educate, and persuade, and carry them with you – and it’s often a long haul.

The people I really most admire are Robert Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. If you know someone, it is very hard to revere them.

Most people are not shocked that I am occasionally rude to journalists. They are probably amazed I don’t punch one in the face.

I do explicitly see Jewish people as a people – not either a religion or an ethnicity but a people.

I’m an emotional person; I do occasionally shed a tear.

I’ve never declined to do an interview.

My administration will tackle these issues in consultation with the black communities of London.

Ed Miliband doesn’t give a damn about what he looks like, how he dresses. He came into politics to change society.

I have opened newspapers and read incredible lies.

Global warming could be solved by shifting three to four per cent of global GDP to pay for it.

I actually think the civil service, who are the malignancy at the heart of public life, have consciously prevented, talked ministers out of, made it difficult regulatory-wise, to allow more pressure on alternative energy sources to grow.

I Kenneth Robert Livingstone, having been elected to the office of mayor of London, declare that I take that office upon myself, and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties of it to the best of my judgement and ability.

I refuse not to have a sense of humour.

I would like to sound like James Mason. I reckon if I’d had a better voice I could have been prime minister. It is the most irritating voice in public life.

When I was leader of the GLC, by the time I had been in control for three years, the difference in pay between the cleaner and the director general was a four-to-one ratio. I find that attractive.

There needs to be radical development in equality law to create the environment to allow women to stay in work.

I’ve met serial killers and professional assassins and nobody scared me as much as MrsT.

The best way to demonstrate the values of a western democracy is you put Osama bin Laden on trial; you challenge what he says.

I don’t work hard enough. If I had worked harder I might have been prime minister.

I think democracy’s undermined when those who own newspapers fill them with trivia rather than real issues.

I have only ever borrowed money for investment. I have been sound money all my life.

When I’m sifting the compost seed or pruning, I argue over issues in my head; I talk to myself.

My only regret is the media’s obsession with the past.

You lose power in Britain and you are just Joe Public again.

Most people wouldn’t want to marry a politician.

Psephology isn’t a hate crime.

Well, I get on with people who believe in something.

If you are running a city you must focus on day-to-day problems.

I could not cherish London and not value Jewish London. The contribution of Jews to London is immense – politically, economically, culturally, intellectually, philanthropically, artistically.

Every year the international finance system kills more people than the Second World War. But at least Hitler was mad, you know.

I was a weedy kid, not like one of those working-class men who can accommodate not being academically clever by physical strength and prowess.

I never came into life with any favours or privileges.