all numbers are stored in binary. if you want a textual representation of a given number in binary, use bin(i)

>>> bin(10)
'0b1010'
>>> 0b1010
10

You can use int and set the base to 2 (for binary):

>>> binary = raw_input('enter a number: ')
enter a number: 11001
>>> int(binary, 2)
25
>>>

However, if you cannot use int like that, then you could always do this:

binary = raw_input('enter a number: ')
decimal = 0
for digit in binary:
    decimal = decimal*2 + int(digit)
print decimal

Below is a demonstration:

>>> binary = raw_input('enter a number: ')
enter a number: 11001
>>> decimal = 0
>>> for digit in binary:
...     decimal = decimal*2 + int(digit)
...
>>> print decimal
25
>>>