Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Making mistakes is part of life. The only things I would feel ashamed of would be if I had said things I hadn't believed in order to get on. Some politicians do do that.
Democracy is not just voting every 5 years and watching 'Big Brother' in between and wondering why nothing happens. Democracy is what we do and say where we live and work
I'm not frightened about death. I don't know why, but I just feel that at a certain moment your switch is switched off, and that's it. And you can't do anything about it.
Labour needs to end its support for expensive nuclear power and vanity projects like HS2, and take a firm stance against the ecologically impossible expansion of airports.
If we genuinely believe in a bigger future for our country, we have to redistribute both wealth and power - so people can take back control for good, not just for one vote.
I really think in the Commonwealth of Europe you should have Russia. I listed a hundred countries that would be in it and it would then be a really European United Nations.
Having served in eleven Parliaments, it would be difficult to describe this as a maiden speech. It would be like Elizabeth Taylor appearing at her next wedding in a white gown.
Britain is a parliamentary democracy. Power rests in Parliament, in the House of Commons, and the government - the executive - has to seek the consent of MPs for its legislation.
It's the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you.
We always knew that whatever party Nigel Farage led - first UKIP and then the Brexit party - was basically a vehicle for his own political self-glorification and now he's proved it.
The models that the other parties have used where you have a very powerful leader squashing any kind of independent ideas from the grass roots is not very attractive to the electorate.
The one thing we have that the other parties do not have is a political integrity. No one thinks you join the Green party because you're politically ambitious, or have your own agenda.
I've been a member of the Labour Party sixty five years, and I remain in it, but I think it's all about campaigning for justice and peace, and if you do that, you get a lot of support.
There is an important message that all political leaders should be taking from the response to coronavirus, and that is that people are prepared to make hard choices for the common good.
The Government needs to recognise that we live on a planet with finite resources - and start measuring our progress as a society by the quality of our lives, not the expansion of our GDP.
Huge public spending and borrowing in the face of an existential crisis is clearly the right thing to do, as is putting people's health and wellbeing above the pursuit of economic growth.
In the public mind, when they think of politicians, sadly they probably tend to think of men in grey suits doing work behind closed doors at Westminster. I want to get away from the idea.
To the extent that Bernie Sanders was about building a movement of people where challenging things that up until then were unchallengeable, then absolutely we want to be seen in that mould.
Many are outspoken about the climate crisis, but conveniently ignore the fact that support for fossil fuels is not just incompatible with curbing emissions but dangerously counterproductive.
Clear skies and clean air must become the new normal. We must re-design our cities, reclaiming the streets for cycling and walking, allowing people to walk along streets unpolluted by traffic.
I try to operate on two unconnected levels. One on the practical level of action in which I am extremely cautious and conservative. The second is the realm of ideas where I try to be very free
It's lovely to be old. I've got age, experience and zero personal ambition. No body could corrupt me by anything: possibly a job in the government, a peerage, a quango, I don't want any of it.
I've been arrested a few times. The most high-profile instance was when protesting at the fracking site in Balcombe. It's an industry which will undermine our chances of tackling climate change.
No medieval monarch in the whole of British history ever had such power as every modern British Prime Minister has in his or her hands. Nor does any American President have power approaching this
Advanced industrialised economies like ourselves cannot afford to go on growing, particularly if we want to give people in poorer countries a chance of being able to at least meet their basic needs.
I think if people thought we were just like the other parties and would ditch our policies at the first moment we thought we wouldn't get a majority, then we'd become just like all the other parties.
With pollution from traffic a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, we should be building a transport and planning system that makes car-free travel for shorter distances the norm for the majority.
There may be a legal obligation to obey, but there will be no moral obligation to obey. When it comes to history, it will be the people who broke the law for freedom who will be remembered and honoured.
People say that if we work for the Single European Act, women will get their rights, the water will be purer, and training will be better. That is rubbish. It is part of the attempt to consolidate the EEC.
Coronavirus has exposed for all what many of us already knew - some of our most important workers have barely enough to live on, and millions are condemned to financial insecurity, inequality and food poverty.
Someone comes every morning at nine o'clock to see if I am still alive. I do get lonely, yes, but I have the children who come and see me. I see all my children every week, and there are the grandchildren, too.
The only newspaper in our house when I was growing up was the Daily Mail, and we would never have dreamt of discussing politics around the dinner table. So my involvement in politics came about through activism.
Britain was once notorious as the 'dirty man of Europe' with polluted air, raw sewage pumped into the sea and protected sites being lost at a terrifying rate. E.U. laws and the threat of fines changed much of that.
Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. And then he wins the world peace prize and becomes president of South Africa. That's how change happens. It's very important not to differentiate protest from the democratic process.
When Blair was elected leader of the Labour Party, he said, "New Labour is a new political party" - that was the phrase he used, and I'm so glad he said it because he set up his own party and I'm not a member of it.
Normally, people give up parliament because they want to do more business or spend more time with family. My wife said 'why don't you say you're giving up to devote more time to politics?'. And it is what I have done.
It is government policy to phase out subsidies to nationalised industries. In line with this, the government hopes that the coal industry will be able to operate without the need for assistance apart from social grants.
Remember, imperialism is always presented as humanitarian: the white man's burden, the cross going round the world, the poor benighted natives, the sun never sets. . . So you have to be very careful about humanitarianism.
The present combination of corporate or commercial control theoretically answerable to politically appointed Boards of Governors is not in any sense a democratic enough procedure to control the power the broadcasters have.
The Establishment decided Thatcher's ideas were safer with a strong Blair government than with a weak Major government. We are given all these personalities to choose between to disguise the fact that the policies are the same.
I don't believe in the hereditary principle in the House of Lords. Imagine going to the dentist, sitting in the chair and he says, 'I'm not a dentist myself, but my father was a dentist and his father before him. Now, open wide!
For expectant mothers there's so much to think about - and so much to prepare for. In amongst those many thoughts and all the excitement are also some concerns, not least the serious worries for many about what will happen at work.
There are lots of things one can criticise about the European parliament, but it does work pretty well in terms of the speed with which you can vote, the fact that there's room to sit, the fact that there are offices when you arrive.
When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don't like it you can change it.
I've got four lovely children, ten lovely grandchildren, and I left parliament to devote more time to politics, and I think that what is really going on in Britain is a growing sense of alienation. People don't feel anyone listens to them.
It is not surprising that more and more people are coming to the conclusion that the ballot box is no longer an instrument that will secure political solutions... They can see that the parliamentary democracy we boast of is becoming a sham.
If I were the American President I would rather be popular than have the power the destroy the world because however many puppets they have all over the Middle East - Saudi Arabia, Egypt and so on - they haven't got support from the people.
I think democracy is not a destination. I don't think socialism is a railway station and if we catch the right train with the right driver, we'll get there. I think it's a way of thinking about things and every generation has to do it again.
What does the public want? It wants a vested interest in its own energy provision - driving more efficient behaviour. It wants greater choice and responsibility at a local level. And it wants increased use of renewables to protect the environment.
I met somebody once who said, "I'm a lapsed-atheist" by what he meant was, "I don't believe in God but the older I get the more I realise there is a spirituality in everybody that has to be cherished and nourished." That made a lot of sense to me.