KEN LIVINGSTONE

I employed my wife for three years to sit in the attic and type up my autobiography, 700 pages, organise everywhere I go. I'm paying the normal rate of tax on the money I take out for myself.

The best way to demonstrate the values of a western democracy is you put Osama bin Laden on trial; you challenge what he says.

I have no interest in managing my financial affairs.

I undertake that, in the exercise of my functions of that office I will have regard to any guidance with respect to ethical standards issued by the secretary of state under Section 66 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999.

I've always been a workaholic. I reckon, on average, I've had less than one day a year off in my working career.

The press keep asking me, 'What was your biggest mistake?' But if I had made a big mistake, they'd all be writing about it, wouldn't they?

I Kenneth Robert Livingstone, having been elected to the office of mayor of London, declare that I take that office upon myself, and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties of it to the best of my judgement and ability.

Every budget I have ever prepared has been balanced.

I think democracy's undermined when those who own newspapers fill them with trivia rather than real issues.

I have opened newspapers and read incredible lies.

I refuse not to have a sense of humour.

I liked it when we had ugly politicians who droned on about issues.

You lose power in Britain and you are just Joe Public again.

If I was courting the Muslim vote, I wouldn't have put establishing the partnership ceremony at the forefront of my first term, would I? I go all around London advocating lesbian and gay rights.

Working with the Jewish community is essential to me and what I stand for.

I can only admire people who I have never met and are dead - because you know so much about anyone who is alive.

When I was leader of the GLC, by the time I had been in control for three years, the difference in pay between the cleaner and the director general was a four-to-one ratio. I find that attractive.

Press TV is one of the few TV channels anywhere in the West that fairly presents the Palestinian case.

I spent the 1960s and 1970s seeking myself - the working-class tradition of self-education.

The whole culture of my background was deeply Conservative.

Yes, there are lots of individual exceptions. But no one has ever done a study about voting intention without ascertaining that the biggest determining factor is your income and your wealth.

Thatcher was prepared to destroy the world rather than give in on something she believed in.

I can't understand why anyone would want to live the life of a politician if you can't say pretty much what you think. You are not in it for the money: there's unremitting pressure on your life, you give up so much of your privacy. It can only be because of the things you want to do and the things you want to say.

What do we do about climate change bearing down upon us?

I loathe and detest all this trivialisation of politics.