People From London

"A counter tenor is anyone who can count to ten."

"He had the kind of handshake that ought never to be used except as a tourniquet."

"What is a harp but an over-sized cheese-slicer with cultural pretensions?"

"This year I’m planning on hibernating from October until the Olympics next August. It’s that important to me. It drives me. And it’s very addictive. One of the cruellest things about the sport is that you’re never fulfilled or completely happy with your performance. You’re running against a clock so you always want to go faster and think that you can. That becomes an addiction."

"I still haven’t learned to deal with situations like that very well — but I don’t think you should, because then you’re accepting defeat. It’s good to be stubborn, to be hard on yourself."

"Ankier is anxious to avoid what she calls the “Anna Kournikova syndrome” — “I realise that a lot of the media attention I’ve got is because I don’t look horrible, but that can bring attention you don’t want.”"

"The important question is, do we want more women in management positions, or less assholes in general. I lean toward the latter."

"I respect a man who can recognize a quotation. It's a dying art."

"That's the attraction of the conference circuit: it's a way of converting work into play, combining professionalism with tourism, and all at someone else's expense. Write a paper and see the world! I'm Jane Austen – fly me!"

"Looking around at the faces of his colleagues in the Senior Common Room he felt reassured: not a Lineament of Gratified Desire to be seen."

"I'm a bit of a deconstructionist myself. It's kind of exciting – the last intellectual thrill left. Like sawing through the branch you're sitting on."

"Language is the net that holds thought trapped within a particular culture. But if one could only strike the ball with sufficient force, with perfect timing, it would perhaps break through the netting, continue on its course, never fall to earth, but go into orbit around the world."

"Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way round."

"Four times, under our educational rules, the human pack is shuffled and cut – at eleven-plus, sixteen-plus, eighteen-plus and twenty-plus – and happy is he who comes top of the deck on each occasion, but especially the last. This is called Finals, the very name of which implies that nothing of importance can happen after it."

"It is not necessary to light a candle to the sun."

"If these rules have not been well observed in the first constitution, or from the changes of times, corruption of manners, insensible encroachments, or violent usurpations of princes, have been rendered ineffectual, and the people exposed to all the calamities that may be brought upon them by the weakness, vices, and malice of the prince, or those who govern him, I confess the remedies are more difficult and dangerous; but even in those cases they must be tried. Nothing can be feared that is worse than what is suffered, or must in a short time fall upon those who are in this condition. They who are already fallen into all that is odious, shameful, and miserable, cannot justly fear. When things are brought to such a pass, the boldest counsels are the most safe; and if they must perish who lie still, and they can but perish who are most active, the choice is easily made. Let the danger be never so great, there is a possibility of safety, whilst men have life, hands, arms, and courage to use them; but that people must certainly perish, who tamely suffer themselves to be oppressed, either by the injustice, cruelty, and malice of an ill magistrate, or by those who prevail upon the vices and infirmities of weak princes. It is in vain to say, that this may give occasion to men of raising tumults, or civil war; for tho' these are evils, yet they are not the greatest of evils. Civil war, in Macchiavel's account, is a disease; but tyranny is the death of a state. Gentle ways are first to be used, and it is best if the work can be done by them; but it must not be left undone, if they fail. It is good to use supplications, advices, and remonstrances; but those who have no regard to justice, and will not hearken to counsel, must be constrained. It is folly to deal otherwise with a man who will not be guided by reason, and a magistrate who despises the law; or rather, to think him a man, who rejects the essential principle of a man; or to account him a magistrate, who overthrows the law by which he is a magistrate. This is the last result; but those nations must come to it, which cannot otherwise be preserved."

"God helps those who help themselves."

"Liars ought to have good memories."

"Men lived like fishes; the great ones devoured the small."

"That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed."

"The Lord sanctify these my sufferings unto me, and though I fall as a sacrifice unto the — Idols, suffer not idolatry to be established in this land. Bless thy people and save them. Defend thy own cause and those that defend it. Stir up such as are faint. Direct those that are willing. Confirm those that waver. Give wisdom and integrity unto all. Order all things so as they may most redound unto thine own glory. Grant that I may die glorifying thee for all thy mercies and that (as the last) thou hast permitted me to be singled out as witness of thy truth, and even by the confession of my oppressors, for that Old Cause in which I was from my youth engaged and for which thou hast often and wonderfully declared thyself."

"I am persuaded to believe that God had left nations to the liberty of setting up such governments as best pleased themselves, and that magistrates were set up for the good of nations, not nations for the honor and glory of magistrates. That the right and power of magistrates in every country was that which the laws of that country made it to be. That these laws are to be observed and the oaths taken by rulers to be kept. And that having the force of contracts between magistrates and people, they cannot be violated without danger of dissolving the whole fabric."

"Few men would be so gentle as to spare even the best, if by their destruction vile usurpers could become God's anointed, and by the most execrable wickedness invest themselves with that divine character."

"We live in an age that makes truth pass for treason, and as I dare not say anything against it, so the ears of those that are about me will probably be found too tender to hear it. This my trial and condemnation do sufficiently evidence."

"I have lately undertaken to read Algernon Sidney on government. … As often as I have read it, and fumbled it over, it now excites fresh admiration that this work has excited so little interest in the literary world. As splendid an edition of it as the art of printing can produce — as well for the intrinsic merit of the work, as for the proof it brings of the bitter sufferings of the advocates of liberty from that time to this, and to show the slow progress of moral, philosophical, and political illumination in the world — ought to be now published in America."

"I thought fit to leave this testimony to the world, that, as I had from my youth endeavored to uphold the Common rights of mankind, the lawes of this land, and the true Protestant religion, against corrupt principles, arbitrary power and Popery, I doe now willingly lay down my life for the same; and having a sure witness within me, that God doth absolve me, and uphold me, in the utmost extremityes, am very littell sollicitous, though man doth condemne me."

"If his Majesty is resolved to have my head, he may make a whistle of my arse if he pleases."

"I was long since told that I must die — or the plot die. And lest the means of destroying the best Protestants in England should fail, the Bench must be filled with such as had been blemished at the Bar. None but such as these would have advised with the King's Council of the means to bring a man to death: suffered a jury to be empanelled by the King's Solicitor and the Under-Sheriff: admit of jurymen who are no freeholders: receive such evidence as is above mentioned … they assume unto themselves not only a power to make constructions, but such constructions as neither agree with law, reason nor common sense. By them and their means, I am brought unto this place. The Lord forgive their practices and avert the evils that threaten the nation from them."

"Manus haec inimica tyrannis Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem."

"Yes, we have a pronatalist ambition. We want people to have more children, and we think the government should get behind that wish."

"Clearly, Donald Trump is not wildly popular in the UK, and the fact that we have and Nigel [Farage] has a personal friendship with him, might not be advantageous. [...] On the other hand, I think it reflects well on Nigel that he's stood by Donald Trump, including when Trump was down, and that relationship is very, very useful, potentially, to the United Kingdom and to a Reform government. And let's not pretend otherwise: there is a clear affinity of worldview between the Maga movement and Reform."

"Marriage traditionally was the means by which sexual relations between men and women were regulated, and I think we are suffering from having a totally unregulated sexual economy. [...] I'm not interested in your love life, or anything about your personal life – that is your business. But I am interested in the framework in which you make your decisions, and I'd like the framework to be more pro-social. If you want – most people do want – to settle down with one person to have children, we should make that easier."

"I think that socialism is in heaven. [...] The problem with socialists is they don't accept the fall of man. They try to create heaven on Earth with the assumption that if we somehow just got our institutions or culture right, we could be synonymous beings and all behave nicely to each other. [...] Heaven is a socialist state [...] The effort of socialists is to bring heaven on Earth, with the state in the position of God. That is not a good idea. That's because no state of human beings can be all good or all powerful."

"To me, it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. It's unavoidable. I mean, I totally get the appeal. But I think it's a problem in our society, how ubiquitous pornography is."

"The US is a very different place. We don't want to mirror their politics. We don't want to follow everything that the current administration is doing in the UK, far from it. But the US and the Republicans are the best friends this country could have."

"[On flag displays being lifted from US practices] But remember America is British. [Edwardes frowns and asks for confirmation of what he means] Yeah, go on, definitely. Trump, JD [Vance], they all explicitly say, 'We derive our ideas – and certainly our political model and our political culture – from Britain.' And, 'What a shame you guys seem to have so little pride in your own country and your own model.' If you look back to the 18th and 19th century, we were pretty vulgar, too. There's a lot of flag-waving. So partly, Reform is just bringing it back."

"[On the Reform Party] They think the obstacle to Conservatism is the Conservative Party. And I kind of get what they're saying. Because in many ways it is, we're not a very conservative party in lots of ways. But I don't agree with them. I think the answer to the Conservative Party's problems is to change the Conservative Party and to make it better, which is what we're trying to do. But I am sympathetic to their general critique. I don't really believe in them, I don't really like them to be honest. I don't think they stand for genuine conservative ideas, I think they're just a destructive force. I think it will be a tragedy if they did end up replacing us. But their general critique of what's wrong, I think, is mostly valid. And the people who are attracted to them, I understand why and we have to have major respect for them, not insult them."

"On Bonnie Blue I mean, listen, we'll take votes wherever we can get them. We know we want all the support we can get, quite like Bonnie Blue. But we, you know, we're not going to be fussy about that. But listen, I mean, you know I'm not going to be judgmental about people who want to vote Reform."

"The Government should immediately announce an intention to do what is necessary to insist on our sovereignty. That means legislation to override the effect of the w:European Court of Human RightsEuropean court, of the ECHR itself and of other conventions including the Refugee Convention if necessary."

"[On a potential ministerial role in a Reform government] I might have screwed up by then. My normal trajectory is to do something catastrophic and blow myself up. So, let's see what I do next."

"At the moment my most intimate liaison is with Mr. Algernon Sidney; he is the man in England who seems to me to have the greatest understanding of affairs; he has great relations with the rest of the Republican party; And nobody in my opinion is more capable of rendering service than him."

"Nihilism has consumed left-liberalism from within, and now animates the corpse. Old socialist principles like the dignity of labour and the solidarity of the working class, and liberal principles like free speech, tolerance and the value of dissent, have given way to a new social justice orthodoxy which admits no dignity or solidarity and brooks no dissent. Yet because it occupies the life-like corpse of liberalism, the new orthodoxy attracts the usual bien-pensant progressives (including some calling themselves conservatives) who think they are still promoting a diverse and tolerant society."

"The penny is dropping among people in Westminster that the Government doesn’t run the Government. [...] There's a huge movement going on globally to create essentially a world government that will have power to dictate to national governments what they should do in anticipation of another pandemic."

"[On extensive displays of UK and English flags in Home county villages] It reflects the fear and insecurity in society – but it's a legitimate fear and quite a noble statement by ordinary people who believe in their nation and want to proclaim it. The waving of a flag is a pacific way of asserting identity and belonging. Wherever the flag is planted, people – the majority of that community – stand for the values and traditional ideas of our nation. A country in crisis has to lean on its traditional symbols."

"Where the Left imagine social justice to be the realization of certain abstract ideas — equality and emancipation — the Right see it as a system of naturally occurring and beneficial relationships. Social justice is the fulfilment of the individual's need for positive liberty through social membership."

"We plan to introduce a period of creative destruction in the public services."

"Liberalism is the philosophy of the individual. Its ethic is liberty and its characteristic is autonomy — the freedom of the will from external constraint. It says "I shall...". Socialism is the philosophy of the state. Its ethic is equality and its characteristic is coercion — the power, in the last resort, to exert force over individuals and groups. It says "you must...". Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says "we should...""

"A man of the most extraordinary courage, a steady man, even to obstinacy, sincere, but of a rough and boisterous temper, that could not bear contradiction, but would give foul language upon it. He seemed to be a Christian, but in a particular form of his own. He thought it was to be like a divine philosophy in the mind, but he was against all public worship, and every thing that looked like church. He was stiff to all republican principles, and such an enemy to every thing that looked like monarchy, that he set himself in a high opposition against Cromwell when he was made protector. He had indeed studied the history of government in all its branches beyond any man I ever knew."

"One characteristic feature of Sidney's book associates him with Machiavelli. That is his celebration of warlike virtue and foreign conquest. Like Machiavelli, Sidney prefers imperialist Rome to nonexpansionist Sparta. He asserts that “That is the best government, which best provides for war.” Popular governments do this best, for their citizens are hardy and spirited, and there is a mutual rivalry for the honor that anyone may earn (II.15, II.22–23). But unlike Machiavelli, Sidney qualifies his imperialism with the requirement that a war of acquisition be a just war, carried on for a just cause and by just means."

"He yearns for the virtue, the discipline, the frugality, the public spirit, of ancient Rome. He longs too for its martial ardour and glory. "All governments", he maintains, "deserve praise or blame as they are well or ill constituted for making war." Here as elsewhere Sidney is the disciple of Niccolò Machiavelli, the Florentine republican... There is no more eloquent testimony in the English language to the imaginative hold that classical images of political liberty can exert than Sidney's Discourses."