John Bruton

The European Union is the world's most successful invention for advancing peace.

But our system of regulation must keep up with this. If it fails to keep up, it will hold back economic expansion. We need financial market regulation that works at national and European level.

It is not viable for one country to demand a right to increase and upgrade its nuclear weapons capabilities while asking others to eliminate theirs.

With the lessons taken from the financial crisis in 1997, the Republic of Korea has been able to surmount the global economic crisis rather successfully.

When I was 16, I used to hang out at the Nambucca pub in North London and see The Libertines play live.

It's good to like yourself, and that only comes from hard work, from doing. But vanity is dangerous; it can trip you badly.