Quote for the Week

'It is a fact that the Labour leaders are, in practice, opposed to Left policies, even now, when they are in opposition, and will be even more opposed if and when they find themselves in government, and subject to the immense pressures which office generates.'
- Ralph Miliband, 1985

Quote for the Week

Good to hear a UKIP supporter on Radio Five Live this morning explaining that the party spoke for the silent majority who weren't being listened to.

Quote for the Week

'What's the fellow's name? Rees-Davies? Reis-Davies? You know, on The Times.'
'Rees-Mogg?' said Brooke.
'Mogg, that's it. Mogg. I knew it was something foreign. Dear God. It's the thin end of the wedge when you find a fellow called Mogg editing The Times. I ask you. Is a fellow called Mogg likely to inspire confidence in the pound? Can you imagine nations trembling at the thunderings of a person called Mogg? Same with everything these days. BBC, C of E, MCC. They've all sold out. Nowadays it's all demonstrations, anarchy, pornography. Galloping paralysis, that's what it is.'
- Graham Lord, The Spider and the Fly (1974)

Quote for the Week 17

Jack Regan: 'Thank God they're going independent. We'll be able to put that wall up again.'
- Troy Kennedy Martin, 'Hard Men', The Sweeney, 1978

Quote for the Week 16

'It is true that pornography does exist online, but your children will not be subjected to pornographic images every time they connect to the Internet. They would have to actively seek out sites where it can be found.'
- Sunday Times, 7 January 1996

Quote for the Week 15

This government is committed to reducing and then abolishing capital gains tax and inheritance tax.
- Kenneth Clarke in his Budget speech in November 1995

Quote for the Week 14

'We're sitting on a demographic timebomb that successive governments have kept kicking into the long grass.'
- Ruth Porter of the Institute of Economic Affairs, on Radio Five Live this morning

Quote for the Week 13

'Those who haven't come up with the answers before should stop attacking those who are producing solutions.'
- David Blunkett slaps down Roy Hattersley in 1995

Quote for the Week 12

'SNP leader, Alex Salmond, a stubborn single-issue politician with a chip on his shoulder about the English. (That's except for Scottish readers, for whom he is a pertinent and witty statesman with an interesting slant on the devolution issue.)'
- Have I Got 1997 For You (BBC Books, London, 1996)

Quote for the Week 11

'When push comes to shove, the pounds, the dollars and deutschmarks can't be equal. They can't all be at the same standard.'
- Geri Halliwell expresses her concerns about the European single currency, 1996

Quote for the Week 10

'Yes, the resulting deal may be totally undemocratic, but if the single-currency members couldn't take a joke they ought not to have signed up.'
- Dan Atkinson on the current crisis for the Euro.

Quote for the Week 9

'You cannot build the New Jerusalem on a mountain of debt.'
- Gordon Brown to the Labour Party conference, 1997

Quote for the Week 8

'Instead of monopolising the seat of judgement, journalism should be apologising in the dock.' - Oscar Wilde

Quote for the Week 7

'Ooh, la, la, la, la, hey banana!
Don't you slip on the skin.
Ooh, la, la, la, la, hey banana!
Womble up the litter and put it in the bin.'
- The Wombles, 'Banana Rock' (1975)

Some wise Mike Batt lyrics chosen in honour of what's starting to look like an increasingly accident-prone government. And here's one of the Wombles of Westminster yesterday:

Quote for the Week 6

'Looking somewhat like a baby Harold Wilson, but speaking with the authority and cadence of a baby Churchill, he electrified the conference with a stern summons to revive pure Conservatism.'
Fred Emery of The Times on the 16-year-old William Hague appearing at the 1977 Conservative Party conference. Remembered in honour of the 16-year-old Rory Weal who today similarly excited delegates to the Labour Party conference.

Quote for the Week 5

As debate continues over whether the top rate of income tax should be reduced from the current level of 50 per cent, I'm reminded of 1988 when the then chancellor Nigel Lawson cut the top rate from 60 to 40 per cent. Part of the justification put forward by commentators at that time was that the reduced rate would in fact raise more revenue, since it would remove the temptation to find ways of avoiding payment.

'I like that argument, but it isn't true,' said Lawson. 'More tax would have come from the top one to five per cent in any case because the salaries of the top earners have been put up so enormously. But still, let's go on using the argument.'

Quote for the Week 4

'The policy is this: cut resources by ten per cent, increase detection rates by ten per cent.'
A senior officer explains the policing policy of a Conservative government in Andrew Payne's Pie in the Sky, 1996.

Quote for the Week 3

'The thing I am proudest of is that I managed to handle the riots in 1981 without being forced to take more repressive measures.'
William Whitelaw, reflecting on his time as home secretary in The Whitelaw Memoirs, 1989

Quote for the Week 2

'Police stations serve many admirable and necessary purposes, but they aren't places to keep secrets.'
Tony Blair, A Journey, 2010

Quote for the Week

'Nobody will ever clean up the Met. Nothing will ever change.'
Former Metropolitan Police officer Berger in Peter Flannery's Our Friends in the North, broadcast in 1996 and set in 1966.