People From Manchester

"There is a limited supply of excellent songs, but I am not the only one. Paul McCartney, one of the best songwriters of all time, has only produced manure for the past 25 years. Rock musicians over 30 only produce unimportant material."

"Kylie Minogue is just a demonic little idiot as far as I'm concerned. She gets cool dance producers to work with her for some bizarre reason, I don't know why. She doesn't even have a good name. It's a stupid name, Kylie, I just don't get it"

"I hate that Alex and Damon. I hope they catch AIDS and die."

"And I want to be there when you're coming down / And I want to be there when you hit the ground Don't go away / Say what you say / Say that you'll stay... because I need more time just to make things right Damn my education / I can't find the words to say Me and you, what's going on?/All we seem to know/Is how to show, the feelings that are wrong"

"Maybe the songs that we sing are wrong / Maybe the dreams that we dream are gone / So bring it on home and it won't be long / It's gettin' better man!"

"It's a bit early in the midnight hour for me / To go through all the things that I want to be Take me away / 'Cos I just don't want to stay / And the lies you make me say / Are getting deeper every day If you're lost at sea / Well I hope that you drownd" Please don't cry / Never say die"

"Is it any wonder why Princes & Kings / Are clowns that caper in their sawdust rings / When ordinary people who are like you and me / Are the builders of their destiny."

"Thank you for the sun / The one that shines on everyone / Who feels love."

"What tongueless ghost of sin crept through my curtains?. My family don't seem so familiar / And my enemies all know my name. You better get on your knees and pray / Panic is on the way My eyes are dead / My throat's like a black hole / And if there's a God / Would he give another chancer / An hour to sing for his soul?""

"You know that feeling you get / You feel you're older than time? Do you keep the receipts for the friends that you buy? And I hope you know / That it won't let go / It sticks around with you until the day you die. I hope the tears don't stain the world that waits outside."

"When yer lonely and you start to hear/The little voices in your head at night/You will only sniff away the tears/So you can dance until the mornings light And in your head, do you feel what your not supposed to feel? You need more time / 'Cos your thoughts and words won't last forevermore""

"God gave me a soul / And your rock 'n' roll In and out my brain / And running through my vein / You're my sunshine / You're my rain""

"You look like a faded picture / I see the cracks forming on your skin For smoking all my stash / For burning all my cash.. It's all over town that the sun's / Going down on the days / Of your easy life""

"Why you scared? / You'll never change what's been and done All of the stars / Have faded away / Just try not to worry / You'll see them someday / Take what you need / And be on your way / And stop crying your heart out""

"We dream our dream alone with no resistance / Fading like the stars we wish to be True perfection has to be imperfect My God woke up on the wrong side of his bed Little by little / We gave you everything you ever dreamed of / And little by little / the wheels of your life have slowly fallen off" **"

"You get your mucky fingers burnt / You get your truth from the lies that you've learnt Fed up with life in the city / 'Cos all the phonies have blown my mind It's all mine!""

"I've waited for a thousand years / For you to come and blow me out my mind The world around us makes me feel so small If you can't hear me call / Then I can't say, Lyla / Heaven help you catch me if I fall""

"My girlfriend called me the other night / She said 'Boy, you lazy I don't mind / As long as there's a bed beneath the stars that shine / I'll be fine I can't get a life if my heart's not in it I lost my faith in the summertime / 'Cos it don't stop raining I begged my doctor for one more line / He said 'son, words fail me / It ain't your place to be killing time' / I guess I'm just lazy""

"Suddenly I found that I'd lost my way in this city / The streets and the thousands of faces all bleed into one I'm having trouble just finding some soul in this town It's all they can do to be part of the queue 'There'll be no tomorrow' they say / Well I say 'More's the pity'""

"Gold and silver and sunshine is rising up""

"I still don't know what I was waiting for / A big love to fall down from the sky Heaven must have sent you / To save me from the rapture""

"I'm over my heart's desire / I feel cold, but I'm back in the fire Love is a litany / A magical mystery / And all in good time""

"We live a dying dream / If you know what I mean""

"I haven't seen your face around since I was a kid / It's bringing back the memories of the things that we did""

"My body feels young but my mind is very old So what do you say / You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway / You're half the world away I've been lost, I've been found / But I don't feel down""

"When I was young I though I had my own key / I knew exactly what I wanted to be / Now I'm sure / You've boarded up every door While we're living / The dreams we had as children fade away""

"We need each other / We believe in one another / And I know we're gonna uncover / What's sleeping in our souls""

"All your dreams are made of strawberry lemonade / And you make sure I eat today""

"Take the time to make some sense / Of what you want to say / And cast your words away upon the waves Dance if you wanna dance, please brother take a chance / You know we're gonna go which way we wanna go / All we know is that we don't know how it's gonna be, please brother let it be / Life, on the other hand, won't make you understand / We're all part of the masterplan. I'm not saying right is wrong / It's up to us to make the best of all the things that come our way"

"Day by day there's a man in a suit / Who's gonna make you pay For the thoughts that you think and the words / They won't let you say I don't believe in magic / Life is automatic And I don't mind being on my own."

"Is anyone here prepared to say / Just what they mean or is it too late / For anyone here to try to do / Just what it takes to get through to you Let's all make believe / That we're still friends and we like each other Let's all make believe / That in the end we're gonna need each other Strangle my hope and make me pray / To a God I've never seen but who I betray""

"To have two Legislative Assemblies in the United Kingdom would, in my opinion, be an intolerable mischief; and I think no sensible man can wish for two within the limits of the present United Kingdom who does not wish the United Kingdom to become two or more nations, entirely separate from each other."

"Since I have taken a part in public affairs, the fact of the vast weight of the poverty and ignorance that exists at the bottom of the social scale has been a burden on my mind, and is so now. I have always hoped that the policy which I have advocated, and has been accepted in principle, will tend gradually but greatly to relieve the pauperism and the suffering which we still see among the working classes of society."

"I do not think, as some persons seem to think, that the land is really only intended to be in the hands of the rich. I think that is a great mistake. I am not speaking of the poor—for the poor man, in the ordinary meaning of the term, cannot be the possessor of land; but it cannot be a crime or an evil that any man of moderate means, any farmer, should, if he could, become the possessor of land or of his farm."

"He...made observations with regard to the Queen, which, in my opinion, no meeting of people in this country, and certainly no meeting of Reformers, ought to have listened to with approbation. (Cheers.) Let it be remembered that there has been no occasion on which any Ministry has proposed an improved representation of the people when the Queen has not given her cordial, unhesitating, and, I believe, hearty assent. (Cheers.) ... But Mr. Ayrton referred further to a supposed absorption of the sympathies of the Queen with her late husband to the exclusion of sympathy for and with the people. (Hear, hear.) I am not accustomed to stand up in defence of those who are possessors of crowns. (Hear, hear.) But I could not sit here and hear that observation without a sensation of wonder and of pain. (Loud cheers.) I think there has been by many persons a great injustice done to the Queen in reference to her desolate and widowed position. (Cheers.) And I venture to say this, that a woman, be she the Queen of a great realm or be she the wife of one of your labouring men, who can keep alive in her heart a great sorrow for the lost object of her life and affection, is not at all likely to be wanting in a great and generous sympathy with you. (Loud and prolonged cheers.)"

"The Aristocratic Institutions of England [had] acted much like the Slavery Institutions of America...[in] demoralis[ing] large classes outside their own special boundaries...[in producing] a long habit of submission...[and in] enfeebl[ing] by corrupting those who should assail them."

"[H]e asked why in Ireland they should tolerate the law of primogeniture and the system of entails? He would go further still, and deal with the question of absenteeism. He proposed that a Parliamentary Commission should be empowered to treat for the purchase of large estates belonging to the English nobility, with a view of selling them to the tenantry of Ireland. ‘Now, here are some of them: the present Prime Minister, Lord Derby, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Fitzwilliam, the Marquis of Hertford, the Marquis of Bath, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Devonshire, and many others. They have estates in Ireland; many of them, I dare say, are just as well managed as any other estates in the country; but what you want is to restore to Ireland a middle-class proprietary of the soil; and I venture to say that if these estates could be purchased and could be sold out farm by farm to the tenant occupiers in Ireland, that it would be infinitely better, in a conservative sense, than that they should belong to great proprietors living out of the country.’"

"What are the results of this system of legislation? Some of them have been touched upon in that Address which has been so kindly presented to me. You refer to the laws affecting land. Are you aware that half the land of England is in the possession of fewer than one hundred and fifty men? Are you aware of the fact that half the land in Scotland is in the possession of not more than ten or twelve men? Are you aware of the fact that the monopoly in land in the United Kingdom is growing constantly more and more close? And the result of it is this — the gradual extirpation of the middle class as owners of land, and the constant degradation of the tillers of the soil."

"I believe the time is coming when this question must be laid hold of by a Government, and that Parliament will feel that it dare not treat it in future as it has treated it in the past. These great meetings, as Mr. Mill very justly said, were not meetings so much for discussion as they were meetings for demonstration of opinion, and, if you like, I will add for exhibition of force. (Cheers.) Such exhibitions, if they be despised and disregarded may become exhibitions of another kind of force...I have been insulted in past times...that I was in favour of peace at any price...I believe that however much any of us may abhor the thought that political questions in any country should ever again be settled by force, yet there is something in the constitution of our nature that when these evils are allowed to run on beyond a certain period unredressed, that the most peace-loving of men are unable to keep the peace. (Hear, hear.) And bear this in mind,—that, however much we may wish political questions to be settled by moral means, yet it is no more immoral for a people to use force in the last resort for the obtaining and the securing of freedom than it is for a Government by force to suppress and deny that freedom. (Loud cheers, the audience rising.)"

"Working men in this hall...I...say to you, and through the Press to all the working men of this kingdom, that the accession to office of Lord Derby is a declaration of war against the working classes...They reckon nothing of the Constitution of their country—a Constitution which has not more regard to the Crown or to the aristocracy than it has to the people; a Constitution which regards the House of Commons fairly representing the nation as important a part of the Government system of the kingdom as the House of Lords or the Throne itself...Now, what is the Derby principle? It is the shutting out of much more than three-fourths, five-sixths, and even more than five-sixths, of the people from the exercise of constitutional rights...What is it that we are come to in this country that what is being rapidly conceded in all parts of the world is being persistently and obstinately refused here in England, the home of freedom, the mother of Parliaments...Stretch out your hand to your countrymen in every portion of the three kingdoms, and ask them to join in a great and righteous effort on behalf of that freedom which has so long been the boast of Englishmen, but which the majority of Englishmen have never yet possessed...Remember the great object for which we strive, care not for calumnies and for lies, our object is this—to restore the British Constitution and with all its freedom to the British people."

"I am the great terror of the squires, they seem to be seized with a sort of bucolic mania in dealing with me."

"[The opposition to the Reform Bill of 1866 was directed] against the admission of any portion of the working men to the suffrage. The Tory party, and those from the Liberal ranks who join it, are animated by an unchangeable hostility to any Bill which gives the franchise to the working men. They object to any transfer of power from those who now possess it, and they object to share their power with any increased number of their countrymen who form the working class. They regard the workmen here as the southern planter regards the negroes who were so lately his slaves. They can no longer be bought or sold; so far they are free men. They may work and pay taxes; but they must not vote. They must obey the laws, but must have no share in selecting the men who are to make them. The future position of the millions of working men in the United Kingdom is now determined, if the opposition of the Tory party is to prevail—it is precisely that fixed by the southern planter for the negro. Millions of workmen will bear this in mind; they will now know the point or the gulf which separates one party from the other in the House of Commons."

"The right hon. Gentleman is the first of the new party who has expressed his great grief by his actions—who has retired into what may be called his political Cave of Adullam—and he has called about him every one that was in distress and every one that was discontented."

"The Aristocracy in this country are almost, and really are altogether on one side – because they have special privileges to sustain, to surrender which would make them no longer an aristocracy. Our government was purely an aristocratic one from 1690 to 1830. Nearly the whole period was one of war, and war wholly needless."

"We may be proud that England is the ancient country of Parliaments. With scarcely any intervening period, Parliaments have met constantly for 600 years, and there was something of a Parliament before the Conquest. England is the mother of Parliaments."

"Now, take as an illustration the Rock of Gibraltar. Many of you have been there, I dare say. I have; and among the things that interested me were the monkeys on the top of it, and a good many people at the bottom, who were living on English taxes. Well, the Rock of Gibraltar was taken and retained when we were not at war with Spain, and it was retained contrary to every law of morality and honour."

"I have been asked twenty, fifty times during the last twelve months, “Why do you not come out and say something? Why can you not tell us something in this time of our great need?” Well, I reply, “I told you something when speaking was of use; all I can say now is this, or nearly all, that a hundred years of crime against the negro in America, and a hundred years of crime against the docile natives of our Indian empire, are not to be washed away by the penitence and the suffering of an hour.”"

"If the middle class prefer an alliance with the aristocratic or ruling party, to the cordial co-operation and help of the great nation now excluded from the franchise and from all political power, they must be content with a profligate government expenditure, and a taxation burdensome from its amount, and insulting from its inequality and injustice."

"I ask every Gentleman...whether it is possible that you can continue to raise from the people of this country £60,000,000 sterling per annum of taxes more than an equal population is called upon to pay for its Government and its policy in the United States, and that we can go on with safety to our institutions, or that the people can hear the strain of that enormous pressure? ... [T]his insane and wicked policy, which requires that you should abstract from the labour and the industry of the people of England this enormous, incredible, and ruinous sum from year to year. ... You will have an exiled Royal family—you will have an overthrown aristocracy—and you will have a period of recurring revolution; and there is no path so straight, so downward, so slippery, so easily travelled to all these misfortunes as the path which we are now following, year after year adding to these enormous expenses until the time will come when there will be some change throughout the country, when men will open their eyes, will ask who has deceived them, defrauded them, pillaged them. And then you will have to pay the penalty which all men in the upper classes of society in every country have had to pay when they have not maintained the rights of the great body of the people in this particular, and when they have not fulfilled the duties which devolved upon them as the governing classes of the country."

"I have never uttered a word in favour of universal suffrage either in this House or elsewhere."