Politicians From England

"The impression of Mr. Asquith that remains with me is of a man of great dignity, somewhat aloof and Olympian. He belonged to the Victorian age. He would have thought it ill-bred to discuss current politics at the dinner-table, or to criticise other politicians. The guests who were staying in his house, especially those who claimed to know him best, would tell you what he was thinking, but his own conversation never gave a clue. I have an entry in my diary for June 25th 1916, when I was staying at The Wharf: "They say the Prime Minister is worried about having made Lloyd George Secretary of State for War. He thinks it is the mistake of his life." Perhaps it was."

"From the beginning he meant to be Prime Minister, sooner or later. For this position nature had endowed him to a great extent, but not completely. He had as fine an intellectual apparatus, in the way of grasp and understanding, as I ever saw in any man. In his earlier political days he was a very serious person. I remember once passing along the Horse Guards with him. He touched my arm and pointed to the figure of John Bright walking in front of us. ‘There,’ he said, ‘is the only man in public life who has risen to eminence without being corrupted by London Society.’"

"He gave dignified but not rousing and vigorous leadership to the nation. But a War Minister must also have vision, imagination and initiative—he must show untiring assiduity, must exercise constant oversight and supervision of every sphere of war activity, must possess driving force to energise this activity, must be in continuous consultation with experts, official and unofficial, as to the best means of utilising the resources of the country in conjunction with Allies for the achievement of victory. If to this can be added a flair for conducting a great fight, then you have an ideal War Minister. Mr. Asquith at his best did not answer sufficiently to this description to make him a successful Chief Minister in a war which demanded all these qualities strained to the utmost. But apart from these shortcomings the nerve of the Prime Minister at this time was clearly giving out, and he gave the impression of a man who was overwhelmed, distracted and enfeebled not merely by the weight, but by the variety and complexity of his burdens. Whether he was ever fitted for the position of a War Minister in the greatest struggle in the history of the world may be open to doubt, but that he was quite unfitted at this juncture to undertake so supreme a task was not open to any question or challenge on the part of anyone who came constantly in contact with him at the time."

"What could not be retrieved was Asquith's own way of looking at a world at war. This proved fatal. His complete detachment from the spirit of the struggle; his instability of purpose; his refusal to make up his mind on grave and urgent issues of policy; his balancing of one adviser against another till the net result was nil; his fundamental desire to have a peaceful tenure of office in the midst of war, could in the long run have only one result. The men who were in tune with the atmosphere of war—the bold, the eager, the decisive spirits—first fell away from him and then combined against him."

"To me personally he was always most friendly—very easy of access, with a marvellous memory and a loyalty to his colleagues which it is impossible to over-praise. But as the chief of a War Cabinet he was not quite in his element. He was an excellent chairman, quick to understand any point raised, unfailingly courteous to all his colleagues, but apparently regarding it as no part of his duty to initiate solutions of any difficulty or to make suggestions for a new departure in policy. The result was that Cabinet discussions under him were models of propriety and decorum but a little wanting in that liveliness and resource necessary to cope with the prodigious difficulties with which we faced."

"Mr. Asquith is hard to describe, because within his own limited sphere, the management of Parliament in quiet times, he was perfection, and he was a failure because outside those limitations, and yet within his own range of time, lay a world of battle, murder, and sudden death—and that time called for men of a different range of genius. And more than most politicians of our period Asquith looked to the past, always to the present, and seldom to the future."

"My father relied on argument rather than invective, but he was, on the whole, an exception to the general rule of those days."

"It was not Mr. Asquith's judgement that I distrusted; it was that of the kind of barnacles, especially in the general staff, which had affixed themselves to his administration. I believed with good reason as the event showed, that Mr. Lloyd George's military opinions were better than those of Sir William Robertson and the War Office, and that the united command and all else was impossible unless the generals could be put under proper control by the Secretary of State for War and the Prime Minister. That was the real struggle and I regretted the dénouement as much as did the present Prime Minister. But we feel that we were battling for the National existence."

"His resolutions were grounded on careful thought, and once made they were sturdily maintained: he was not easily diverted from his path either by political bluff or by real menace, and beneath his mellowness was a strong foundation, a massive base of tempered reason, difficult to shake or assail. He was very human, but he was so remote from frenzy that he did not always understand the full force of its grip on others; when passions were roused, he was sometimes inclined to overestimate the effect of the broad rational principles which governed his own actions."

"As Prime Minister, Asquith had his faults. His training had been that of a barrister, whose business it is to support the case in his brief by all fair means. That is not enough for a Prime Minister, particularly in war-time. He must be prepared to originate policy and insist on its adoption. Nor are the issues so clear as they are in legal proceedings. Decisions have to be made not as to what was right in the past, but rather as to what is likely to happen and what ought to happen in the future. That means the adoption of definite plans and their energetic support, even if at first their success seems doubtful. In the qualities needed for action of that kind, Asquith was deficient. No one could better weigh arguments submitted to him or had more extensive and accurate knowledge of the facts of any problem. As Chairman of the Cabinet, or any other committee, he was excellent. It was in what may be called instinctive leadership—the faculty of being right and of forcing through his views—that he did not succeed so well. I remember Bonar Law saying to me of Lloyd George that he was a difficult man to oppose. I don't think I should ever have said that of Asquith. But I should have said that he was an almost perfect man to serve. His loyalty, his straightforwardness, his power of reasoning and his astonishingly accurate memory, together with his gift for clear and forcible expression, made him a delightful chief, an admirable administrator and a notable Parliamentarian."

"It is said, however, that this is not an ordinary case of the transfer of power from one party to another. It means, for the first time, the installation of a Socialist Government in the seats of the mighty. Few people who have not had the melancholy privilege of reading my postbag for the last month will realise what this prospect means to a large and by no means negligible mass of our fellow subjects. I have had a very large experience of the vagaries of postal correspondence. I have never come across more virulent manifestations of an epidemic of political hysteria... I have been in turn, during these weeks, cajoled, wheedled, almost caressed, taunted, threatened, brow-beaten, and all but blackmailed to step in as the "saviour of society.""

"The socialization or nationalization of production and distribution and the extinction of what is called Capitalism—by whatever name the ideal, and the process for its attainment, is called—would starve the resources, and, in time, drain away the life-blood of the great productive industries which depend for their efficiency on the free play of initiative and enterprise. And Labour is becoming more and more a class organization, an expression and embodiment of what is called “class-consciousness.” That again was significantly illustrated in the general strike, which was directed by organized Labour, and which was countenanced—it is true, in a somewhat shamefaced fashion—by the Parliamentary Labour Party leaders."

"[I]f a Labour Government is ever to be tried in this country, as it will be, sooner or later, it could hardly be tried under safer conditions."

"Everyone desires outrages to cease, and its perpetrators, from whatever camp they proceed, to be detected and punished. (Hear, hear.) But this cannot be too clearly said—it is possible for the State to pay too high a price for what is called the vindication of the law. The price is too high, far too high, when it involves the enthronement in the seat of justice of revenge, and the borrowing by the Executive of the criminals' own methods of indiscriminate robbery, arson, and murder. (Cheers.)"

"They are confronted in Ireland with a situation which is largely due to their own lack of insight and of sympathy, confronted with a situation which needed strong and firm handling, strong and firm, but at the same time and above all, just, even-handed, and dispassionate. They have let loose this orgy of reprisals which confuse the innocent and the guilty in a common tumult of lawless violence. They deny, they prevaricate, they cloak and screen and block the avenues to truth in a childish belief that when order has been restored, a cowed and subjugated people will spread out grateful hands to grasp the boon of pinchbeck Home Rule. I say deliberately that never in the lifetime of the oldest among us has Great Britain sunk so low in the moral scale of nations. That, at any rate, when most of the members of the Coalition are forgotten, will be an achievement which will be remembered in history."

"What is the use of talking of Empire if here, at its very centre, there is always to be found a mass of people stunted in education, prey to intemperance, huddled and congested beyond the possibility of realising in any true sense either social or domestic life"

"The Income Tax at 6s., 5s., 4s. 6d.—I go further, and say, even at 4s.—is, in my opinion, a bad and pernicious form of capital levy... The effect of such an Income Tax...is not merely to curtail the enjoyments and comforts of a large number of our middle classes. Its effect is to dry up the stream which fertilises the whole field of employment and of industry. I should have thought that no class of the community is more directly interested in a reduction of the Income Tax to—I will not say the pre-War standard, for that is out of sight now, and an utter impossibility—but to a reasonable and moderate standard, than those people who gain their living by the work of their hands. It is not a class question at all. It affects the interests of the whole business world and the whole future of British trade."

"He has taken his choice, and he has by that choice constituted his own immortality. He will go down to history as the last Prime Minister of a Liberal Administration. He has sung the swan song of the Liberal party. When next the country is called upon for a decision, if it wants a Socialist Government, it will vote for a Socialist; if it does not want a Socialist Government, it will vote for a Unionist. It will not vote again for those who denatured its mandate and betrayed its trust."

"So far from enjoying the undisputed hegemony which was so confidently predicted for British trade 50 years ago, there was not now an inch of ground in any one of the international markets for which we were not fighting with all our available strength. We had long ceased to enjoy that relative superiority in natural advantages with which we started upon the race."

"More important still, perhaps, the sanctity of treaties and of the public law of Europe has been finally vindicated; and last, and most important of all, we have set up in the League of Nations a new international polity which promises, if it is given free scope and full authority, first to bring about progressive disarmament, and next to provide in future a rational and humane substitute for the ruinous arbitrament of war."

"It was reserved for Mr. Asquith to cast away a second opportunity. After the general election men of all parties turned cordially and even eagerly to a veteran statesman whose sterling qualities, though tried by both extremes of fortune, have always commanded respect. But Mr. Asquith would not help. He proclaimed himself first and last a party man. Assuming airs of superiority for which there was little warrant, Mr. Asquith and his friends declared that all common action with Conservatives was improper, immoral, degrading in the last degree, and not to be thought of in any circumstances. Farther than that, they would place and keep a Socialist minority in office and beg in the most humane manner for any crumb which might fall from their table. Under this guidance the Liberal party deliberately cast away their opportunity of rendering an immense service to the public, and delivered themselves over bound hand and foot to their implacable Socialist foes. How swift are time’s revenges? Only a few months have passed, but now they can appreciate the almost fatal consequences of their failure to place country before party at a fateful juncture."

"[A] party requires party spirit, and party spirit is the product of a very complex sentiment, which is slow to grow and hard to sustain, and which thrives best where it can be nourished by historic memories."

"A fierce, resolute Asquith, fighting with all his powers would have conquered easily. But the whole trouble arose from the fact that there was no fierce resolute A. to win this war or any other."

"The severance of Ulster from the rest of Ireland is a geographical, and, therefore, a political impossibility. ... The Union is safe so long as Ulster is loyal."

"I...say to my working-men friends here, before you forsake your support and allegiance to the Liberal party, and before you go trying to found some separate organization of your own, let me venture to put before you two considerations. In the first place I would beg of you to remember that in English public life and in English history we have hitherto always had parties which did not represent, or which, at any rate, did not profess to represent, particular classes, but which looked at the interests of the community from the point of view of the community as a whole."

"I give you this charge, that you shall be on my privy council and content yourself to take pains for me and my realm. This judgement I have of you: that you will not be corrupted with any manner of gift, and that you will be faithful to the state, and that, without respect of my private will, you will give me that counsel that you think best. And if you shall know anything necessary to be declared unto me of secrecy, you shall show it to myself only, and assure yourself I will not fail to keep taciturnity therein. And therefore herewith I charge you."

"As your Majesty knows, it is Burghley who rules the whole of this country."

"Sir William Cecil...was arguably the greatest statesman not only of Tudor England but of sixteenth-century Europe. He was Elizabeth's de facto prime minister for the first forty years of her forty-five year reign."

"Where Cecil was sober and careful, [Robert] Dudley was fun and exciting and brought with him a circle of soldiers and poets, including the courtly Sir Christopher Hatton (ca. 1540-91), who served her as lord chancellor and parliamentary "mouthpiece"; and the cunning Sir Francis Walsingham (ca. 1532-90), who, as secretary of state from 1573, oversaw her spies and espionage. These men tended to favor an aggressive foreign policy in support of Protestant causes abroad."

"When the developments of the 1570's raised the specter of open war, he became more and more the embodiment of caution, chary of risk-taking, the first to point out England's poverty of resources, the most insistent opponent of foreign entanglements. As far as one can see, his preference would have been an isolationist stance, a “fortress England,” relying on a strong navy, coastal fortifications, and a resolute neutrality. When war came, he sought to limit the war effort to the narrowest limits consistent with state security."

"Because many of the men in both Cecil's and Dudley's circles also held local offices ranging from lord lieutenant down to JP, theirs were truly national networks of patronage, Elizabethan counterparts to medieval affinities. Each circle tended to be linked by ties of blood and marriage as well as temperament and religious orientation, and sons succeeded fathers in their service. Usually, these two groups agreed on general aims and they got along well with each other socially. But at times of crisis, they tended to divide. Where Cecil and his allies increasingly urged caution, pacifism, and thrift, Dudley and his followers advocated bold military intervention against what they saw as a growing threat to English interests and the Protestant cause from the Catholic powers. Where Cecil and his circle appealed to the queen's head, Dudley and his group appealed to her heart. The latter attraction produced a crisis almost as soon as the reign began."

"He [King Philip II of Spain] is the mightiest enemy that England ever had, mightier than his father, the emperor Charles, or any other monarch of Christendom was these many years. … Her Majesty's special and most proper defence must be by ships. For ships of England, her Majesty is of her own proper ships so strong as the enemy shall not be able to land any power where her Majesty's navy shall be near to the enemy's navy. The ships of her subjects are also at this day both in number, in strength, in all captains and mariners, stronger than ever they were in memory of man."

"A Pack of Spanish Lies sent abroad in the world, first printed in the Spanish tongue, and translated out of the original. Now ripped up, unfolded and by just examination condemned, as containing false, corrupt and detestable wares worthy to be damned and burned."

"Their Lordships of the Upper House...are one member of the Parliament; and also that the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses of this House representing the whole Commons of this Realm are also another member of the same Parliament; and her Majesty the Head; and that of these three Estates doth consist the whole body of Parliament able to make laws."

"Cecil had been trained as a lawyer, was associated with the Commonwealthmen, and had served as secretary to Lord Chancellor Somerset. He had proved himself an able and industrious administrator and diplomat under Elizabeth's brother and sister. Upon her accession she named him secretary of state and, in 1572, lord treasurer of England. Early in the reign he advocated foreign intervention in support of Protestant causes; but as he grew in age, experience, and responsibility, he became, like the queen herself, more prudent and cautious. From about 1570, he tended to favor diplomacy as less dangerous and more frugal than war. Consequently, he saw the need to work with, or at least avoid offending, the Catholic powers of Spain and France. His vast circle tended to attract equally cautious men interested in bureaucratic careers, like Sir Nicholas Bacon (1510-79), Elizabeth's keeper of the Great Seal; Sir Francis Knollys (1511/1512-96), vice-chamberlain, then treasurer of her household; and Thomas Radcliffe, earl of Sussex (1526/7-83), lord president of the North."

"For forty years, Burghley had dominated English political life, more powerful than anyone except the Queen herself. He had largely fulfilled her estimate of him at the beginning of the reign. Cautious in his approach, meticulous in his knowledge of affairs and his handling of detail, he, together with his royal mistress, supplied the continuity which was an essential feature of the reign."

"Upon this I sent to the Register who brought me the [twenty-four] articles, which I have read and find so curiously penned, so full of branches and circumstance, as I think the Inquisitors of Spain use not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their prey. … this kind of proceeding is too much savouring of the Roman inquisition, and is rather a device to seek for offenders than to reform any."

"England can never be ruined except by a parliament."

"[Spain seeks to] overthrow the Low Countries, which hitherto have been as a counterscarp to your Majesty's kingdom."

"The Queen of England has more cause to procure the preservation of the Low Countries in their ancient estate in the obedience of the house of Burgundy than any other place hath...Now if the Low Countries should either be subdued to the Spaniards or possessed by the French, England cannot continue this manner of league. For if the Spaniard shall possess this country by conquest, as otherwise they cannot, then must they also govern it as conquers—that is build in every country and special towns, forts and castles which must be kept and guarded with Spaniards...To maintain these the King must continue great taxes...and there will be no reason to stop him but he will set what tax he listeth upon the commodities of England and so shall England wax poor to make him rich. And then England will have no remedy."

"I doubt not but the fire illuminating heaven on Michelmas eve was seen there – such as I never saw for the time more fearful. God sendeth us such signs but for our erudition."

"...for which I heartily thank you as she serveth me to great purpose. For she maketh my hunting very certain and speedy. She hath never failed me, for almost every day this week but brought me in the right way to a deer. And this last week she brought me to a stag which myself had stricken with my bow, being forced to the soil where, with the help of a greater water spaniel that forced him out of the water, your good brach helped to pluck him down."

"Not greatly to my surprise—indeed I predicted it—the satellite crashed on take-off because the last thing they [NASA] want is real world hard data."

"The hard left, now in control almost everywhere, no longer make any pretense at respect for the U.S. Constitution or for the freedoms it was once supposed to guarantee. They are openly turning America into a Communist country with institutions many times more expensively tyrannical than the amiable tea-tax collectors of good King George."

"Nearly everyone who is unemployed votes "Democrat." Nearly every immigrant, at least in the first generation, votes "Democrat." Nearly every non-white American votes "Democrat." The GOP know that so intellectually and financially bankrupt an administration should never have been re-elected – indeed, given the scale of electoral fraud practiced by the “Democrats,” he may not actually have been re-elected (always supposing that he had the constitutional right to hold the office of president in the first place)."

"The "Democrats" have learned from the unlamented KGB, whose primary weapon of desinformatsiya, or disinformation, was a million agents whose job was to ruin the reputation of every key opponent of worldwide Communism by making up vicious rumors and peddling them via a plethora of front organizations. The left have done their best to trash my reputation because I have dared to question the climate scare with which they had hoped to bully the West into shutting itself down without a shot being fired. Just look at my CreepyMedia page. I know what it is like to be on the receiving end of artful lies told over and over again by a host of paid trolls and useful idiots."

"I would want to make absolutely sure that he [President Obama] was born here before allowing him to be elected. And the birth certificate that he put up on that website, I don't know where he was born. But I do know that birth certificate isn't genuine."

"As I write, it is not yet clear who has won the presidential election. Win or lose, though, Mr Obama was not and is not the president. The Hawaiian long-form "birth certificate" he publicly endorsed and posted at the White House website last year as proof that he was born in the jurisdiction of the U.S. and is thus constitutionally eligible to be president is a forgery."

"I have begun drafting a memorandum for the prosecuting authorities, together with all evidence necessary to establish not only the existence of numerous specific instances of scientific or economic fraud in relation to the official "global warming" storyline but also the connections between these instances, and the overall scheme of deception that the individual artifices appear calculated to reinforce."

"The Scots are subsidy junkies whingeing like a trampled bagpipe as they wait for their next fix of English taxpayers' money."