If you look at Newcastle or Gateshead, even over twenty years, even with the previous administration, it has moved quite remarkably in transforming itself.

We've given more resources. On housing, we are now establishing a regional housing pot.

Why can't we, with a more intelligent policy, actually have houses that are affordable, built at higher densities than they are at the moment and built on brownfield sites.

There is progress taking place, growth is better. We're only talking about two years there.

It's moving in the right direction. It was in decline under the previous administration.

What government has been doing, we've got major programmes now, of billions of pounds, which are directed by central government into these areas of deprivation.

We believe the 36, nearly 40, billion pound discount given for a right to buy houses took a million houses out of the public housing sector which is desperately needed for rent.

The choice is not normally between the north and south. It might be between Britain and Europe.

Refurbishing I've done in the first three years and I'm still giving housing money, of course, to the north.

In a sense, what we do with the regional development agencies is to give them resources to look at the deficiencies in the economy in the regional areas, so they can address themselves to that.

I was the one that brought it in, but not only for the north-east, for every area so we can develop all the regional economies, lift up the national productivity, get greater wealth and share it more evenly.

We are making the fundamental changes. It was like the decent housing target. We said by 2010, we'd have taken a million houses and refurbished them into decent housing.

I have only been seeking to get them to the negotiating table and, thank God, that's where they are.

In the north east, there, they have had quite a bit of government offices moving in. It's not a new policy.

Down in the south, it's how we find the brownfield sites without taking too much land take to meet the tremendous demand for housing, and that's what I've done.

You go down some street - no doubt it's there, and we have to do something about it, and our programmes are designed to do that - but if that's a picture of Newcastle, it's not the one I recognise and I bet none in the North East do either.

That's what I think regions are about, making central government more accountable and fairer.

If you look at Newcastle or Gateshead, even over twenty years, even with the previous administration, it has moved quite remarkably in transforming itself.

All I could feel was this warm liquid running down my neck. You automatically think it's blood, it's all in split seconds, so I decided to say I didn't agree with him.

I see this fella built like a barn door... and there's all these fox hunters, who didn't like me, screaming and shouting and as I walked past him I looked at him and he hit me with something.

I'm going to introduce you to a revolutionary thought - you can go slower and get there quicker. And that's to do with flow. As soon as you made it two lanes and brought in the 70 (mph) and 50 (mph), you got there quicker. It meant the flow of the traffic was better, there were less accidents, less deaths, I think that's an important factor.

I've gone through that with my mother and father and here I was in a similar situation. I've wronged her and I've wronged the family. Because when these things happen, it doesn't just happen to you, it happens to the people around you and the family.

Perhaps they thought I was on a fact-finding mission, never for one moment thinking that a man of my age and build could be suffering from bulimia nervosa, but that's what the consultant said I had.

She's not forgiven me, but we have a wonderful life from our family and that's the nature and quality of that woman that she can say that.

So what I did was stuff my face with anything around, any old rubbish, burgers, chocolate, crisps, fish and chips, loads of it, till I felt sick - but at least I'd had the pleasure of stuffing my face and feeling really full.

The only break I ever took was to eat. That's all I did. Work, and then quickly eat something. It became my main pleasure, having access to my comfort food.

There was only one punch. Tony Blair rang me and he said 'Are you OK?' and I said 'Yes', and he said 'Well, what happened?' and I said 'I was just carrying out your orders. You told us to connect with the electorate, so I did.

I was surprised that the TV series was popular itself, but after that it went on to become more popular over the years and thus it seemed eventually that they would turn it into a movie.

I prefer to remember the happy things over 10 years, the things that went well. Let me see, what did go well?

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

I think I've become a much better singer and a much better player. Years and years of playing a couple of hours every day will do that.

There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.

The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things.

The Republicans claim they are for strengthening Pell grants when the truth is that over the last four years, their legislation has done the exact opposite.

I want to thank all the fans for their support over the years. Keep supporting the Knicks, we're moving in the right direction here and we will be exciting to watch and competing against the best in the NBA. Come back to the Garden for those exciting games.

I am told that there have been over the years a number of experiments taking place in places like Massachusetts Institute of Technology that have been entirely based on concepts raised by Star Trek.

I couldn't sleep for two years, they tried to break my nerves. They used a lot of psychology to brainwash.

What the war did was give me the opportunity of three years of continuous reading, and it was in the course of reading that I became convinced that I should become an economist.

You look at the whole Human Rights questions, I happened to be there at just the right time when the country was awakening - this goes to the first question you asked - the whole country was awakening to a hundred years of injustice that hadn't been resolved yet.

We started filming in 1993 which was only four years after the fall of communism. The difference in Budapest over the last five years has been remarkable.

I had a wonderful time with the Stones but after 31 years, I thought it was time to move on.

The average life spans of many bands are not that long, up to five years if they are lucky.

For years the Trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We practically starved to death.

Had the Hebrews not been disturbed in their progress a thousand and more years ago, they would have solved all the great problems of civilization which are being solved now under all the difficulties imposed by the spirit of the Middle Ages.

There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.

Plan Colombia was supposed to reduce Colombia's cultivation and distribution of drugs by 50 percent, but 6 years and $4.7 billion later, the drug control results are meager at best.

So the guy that we're really targeting our system at this year is one of the guys who brought a 16bit system three or four years ago and has pretty much had it with that, and he's ready to buy something new.

As a scientist, my attention became totally focused on global warming some 15 years ago by the elegant and powerful measurements of carbon dioxide trapped in ice cores taken as much as 2 miles deep from the great East Antarctica ice sheet.

I have everything I had 20 years ago, only it's all a little lower.