18 Quotes by Des Browne

Are we prepared to tolerate a world in which countries which care about morality lay down their nuclear weapons, leaving others to threaten the rest of the world or hold it to ransom?

The ability to send applications by post allows fraudsters to apply in false or stolen identities without fear of arrest and to make multiple applications in the hope of getting one through. It allows the possibility of passports being applied for with the photographs of people who are outside the U.K. and seeking to enter illegally.

What you need to do in conflict resolution is to bring the people who believe that the answer to their political ambitions will be achieved through violence into a frame of mind that they accept that their political ambitions will be delivered by politics.

There are some days when history is made. Yesterday was one - and I was honoured to be in Washington to watch Barack Obama being sworn in. During his soaring inaugural address, the new president gazed over a teeming National Mall that was crowded with more than a million people.

Whatever he does in office, no man can live up to the high expectations of the world, but we have been changed by his election. Obama's inauguration is a historic global achievement, a major milestone in the journey of a powerful nation.

I do not believe it makes sense to say that nuclear weapons are inherently evil. In certain circumstances, they can play a positive role - as they have in the past. But clearly they have a power to do great harm.

We live in a very uncertain world, and I think that uncertainty of itself generates an environment which we should not make a decision that deprives future generations of the deterrent effect that the nuclear weapons have provided for us and for almost all of my life.

Before they deploy, they train for the specific operations, but there is a danger that the Army is not retaining the core of its full capabilities.

I am sorry to be leaving the post of secretary of state for Scotland.