As a politician who cherishes religious conviction in his personal sphere but regards politics as a domain belonging outside religion I believe that this view is seriously flawed.

The sheep-people don't think for themselves anymore. You can say anything and it's the gospel truth and they don't have to go research it or anything and they believe everything the news tells them. People don't go and do their own investigations if it's relationships or politics or anything.

I'm not deeply ideologically driven. I believe in good center-right politics.

You have to believe that it's through politics that societies can lead social and economic and political change.

Bloomberg is famously impatient with beltway politics and believes that to get anything done you need to work from the ground up.

I don't believe your soul mate has to share your politics.

I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas.

I try not to spend too much time on partisan politics. Life's too short for that. I don't really believe that there have been many human problems solved by politics.

What drew me to politics in the first place was the fact that I wanted to have a place to take a stand and use my voice to express what I believed in. But I've no longer got any political aspirations. I feel that as a politician fifty per cent of people would hate you before you even left the house.

Whether one believes or not religion is as real a force in the life of the world as economics or politics and it demands fair-minded attention. Even if you think the entire religious enterprise is at best misguided and at worst counterproductive it remains vital inspiring great good and sometimes great evil.