"I am on the anti-imperialist left." The Stalinist left? "I wouldn't define it that way because of the pejoratives loaded around it; that would be making a rod for your own back. If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe."

“Some believe that those aeroplanes on September 11 came out of a clear blue sky. I believe they came out of a swamp of hatred created by us.”

“This murder of Hariri was deliberately planned and executed precisely to implicate Syria and to set in train the events which have unfolded.”

“As for Gordon Brown - I've described him and Blair as two cheeks of the same arse.”

“All dignified people in the world, whether Arabs or Muslims or others with dignity, are very proud of the speech made by president Bashar al-Assad a few days ago here in Damascus. For me he is the last Arab ruler, and Syria is the last Arab country. It is the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs, and that's why I'm proud to be here.”

“Instead of flexibility and nous following that decimation , the Government offered the Scots only admonition and insult. The Scots were told memorably by the then Minister for Trade and Industry ...that they lacked "the enterprise culture"—Scots, from the land of Adam Smith, James Watt, Logie Baird and the world's finest engineers and scientists. We were told in a memorable editorial in a yellow newspaper to "Stop yer snivellin' Jock." We were told that the Thatcher revolution must be pressed home in Scotland, albeit on an unwilling population. So the poll tax, rejected by four out of every five Scots, had to go ahead and ... he privatisation of electricity and the steel industry are to be hammered home on this sullen, ungrateful Scottish population, with all the subtlety and resolute approach of Lord North dealing with the American colonies more than 200 years ago. ... The result of this arrogance and insensitivity has been an unprecedented rise in nationalism and nationalist feeling in Scotland. Anyone who denies that is simply flying in the face of reality. That nationalism is taking the form, as it did at Govan and as it has done in every opinion poll, pub, work place and street corner, in a virulent hatred of the Government who are imposing these alien policies on an unwilling population.”

“You don’t give a damn! You don’t give a damn, you don’t even know about the Palestinian families! You don’t even know that they exist! Tell me the name of one member of the seven members of the same family slaughtered on the beach in Gaza by an Israeli warship. You don’t even know their names! But you know the name of every Israeli soldier who has been taken prisoner in this conflict. Because you believe whether you know it or not that Israeli blood is more valuable than the blood of Lebanese or Palestinians. That’s the truth, and the discerning of your viewers already know it.”