The honest truth is that if this government were to propose the massacre of the first-born, it would still have no difficulty in getting it through the commons.

Finally, there's a sense in which I look at this Westminster village and London intelligentsia as an outsider.

When fast food is not a treat but a dietary staple, the children surf the internet all day in dark corners of the room and are bombarded with latest gadgets.Things replace parental standards.

I was a postman one Christmas and I developed a morbid fear of dogs.

You can't defend the indefensible - anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical.

Mental health is often missing from public health debates even though it's critical to wellbeing.

Outsiders often have an insight that an insider doesn't quite have.

In politics, the people I most despise are those who have no values.

Tackling childhood obesity is key.

My mother liked Jim Reeves. I hated his records. He was unbearable.

Abortion is an issue of conscience for the Labour party.

You learn from mistakes.

My family were from Jamaica.

Because when you watch U.S. television, all the presenters and reporters, they're all out of central casting.

Families are struggling against a tide of junk information on junk food.

I wanted my marriage to work, but it didn't.

It's very lonely bringing up a child on your own.

My forebears refused to cut the sugar cane for plantation owners, and I am recognisably a product of that background.

I spend a lot of time visiting local organisations.

My father was a manual worker.

I'm not the only Labour MP who sent their child to public school but I'm the only one who's questioned about it.

I believe every abortion is a tragedy.

I don't think you can have pain and soul-searching doing the right thing for your child.

I want to write a best-selling book.

I'm not thick-skinned at all, and of course I'm hurt by people attacking me as a person.

In Parliament we debate on and we decide the laws that are going to govern the country.

My London constituency in Hackney has one of the highest levels of gun crime in the country. But the problem is no longer confined to inner city areas. Gun crime has spread to communities all over Britain.

I knew what could happen to my son if he was sent to the wrong school and got in with the wrong crowd.

Gun crime is a major cause of fear and distress throughout the UK. The problem is deeply entrenched in a wide range of social and cultural factors and therefore not an isolated issue.