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

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.

The principal rule of art is to please and to move. All the other rules were created to achieve this first one.

All enterprises that are entered into with indiscreet zeal may be pursued with great vigor at first, but are sure to collapse in the end.

Let me first state that I believe that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.

Entropy theory is indeed a first attempt to deal with global form; but it has not been dealing with structure. All it says is that a large sum of elements may have properties not found in a smaller sample of them.

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

The avantgarde are people who don't exactly know where they want to go, but are the first to get there.

I never taste the wine first in restaurants, I just ask the waiter to pour.

After the first miscarriage, I tried to take the attitude that it was my body's way of telling me that this pregnancy wasn't meant to be.

Before and during the first phase of the war his administration repeatedly maligned the UN but now, that Iraq has turned into a quagmire, it is asking the UN for help.

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.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

My first figure was a SLAYER eagle. And the dragons and the tribals are all I have got.

We're parents first, and once you have kids, everybody knows that you have priority lists. Number one is your family and everything else just kind of finds its place.

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.

But in the first Gulf war the United Kingdom was not under any threat from Iraq, and is still less so in the second one. Then there is no justification for obstructing freedom of information, particularly as nations have a right to know what their soldiers are being used for.

I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn't repeat a success. Very often you're going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you're trapped.

Working-class Americans have waited too long, close to a decade in fact, for an increase in the minimum wage. This has been the second longest period without a pay raise since the Federal minimum wage law was first enacted in 1938.

The first thing you do when you get out to center field is put up your finger and check the wind chill factor.

Christians must be Jews. The truth of what we believe depends on the truth of Judaism, depends on the first covenant.

The international proletariat first appeared on the scene in the early Thirties of the nineteenth century, and its first great action was the French Revolution of 1848.

Success requires first expending ten units of effort to produce one unit of results. Your momentum will then produce ten units of results with each unit of effort.

I want to be the first lady to land a quadruple jump in competition. As I grow older, I know that my skating style will develop and mature.