Women Politicians In The United Kingdom

"The idea that a child living deep in poverty whose parents don’t have enough money for food or heating, books or basic things like school trips can ever have the same opportunities for development as a more fortunate child is patently absurd. But because it leads to some difficult choices many politicians choose to ignore it, essentially promising to make you an omelette without breaking any eggs."

"Every weekend families across Britain settle down to watch the X-factor or Britain’s Got Talent. We revel in the discovery of new talent, the chance for someone to come from nowhere and suddenly make it big based simply on their raw ability and hard work. Yet (perhaps outside the realm of music and entertainment) our society is all too often the opposite of this ideal of opportunity."

"It bodes well for the future that young people are thinking so intently about political issues."

"Building an integrated, cost-effective, national health service that delivers quality care for all is one of the critical challenges facing anyone with a stake in global health. A mum doesn’t divide the health of her family up into different bits when she goes to a health clinic: ‘vaccines’, ‘malaria’, ‘HIV’. For her a health centre is a health centre and a nurse is a nurse. When she goes to get help, she should receive integrated care for all her family’s needs not just the one thing that centre, or health practitioner, happens to know about. We need to assign inefficient, parallel health interventions to the rubbish bin."

"I don’t think that maternal and child health is a global priority. The health and welfare of mothers and their children received unprecedented international attention in 2010, but not all Governments were involved and other issues subsequently knocked this issue off the top slot. For those Governments who did make specific policy and resource commitments, the role of civil society is to work hard to get them to deliver. However, to see a truly seismic shift in the life chances of mums-to-be and their babies, Governments — rich and poor — must tackle inequality, especially gender but also income."

"Among the many prejudices against vegans is the belief that they are always preaching to others and trying to convert them. I do not think that is true; we are incredibly tolerant. We are always polite when others ask, “Don’t you ever get tempted by a bacon sandwich?”… In fact, most vegans I know are rather coy about explaining why they are vegan, mostly because the question tends to be asked when we are sitting a dinner table full of meat eaters, and it seems rather impolite to answer. However, seeing as we are not at a dinner party now, here is the ethical case… If people are vegetarians for ethical reasons—because they believe that killing and eating animals is wrong—they really ought to be vegan, too. The average human eats more than 11,000 animals in his or her lifetime, but millions of calves and chicks are also killed every year as “waste products” of milk and egg production."

"Is it a bad thing to have MPs voting for what they think is right? Isn't that Parliament working well?"

"Maybe I was naive, but I thought the whole point of being an MP was to scrutinise legislation and improve it."

"[Referring to women MPs] We're now up to 35 per cent and a lot of men find this objectionable and want to unleash misogyny. [...] The irony is that the more women you get, the more it triggers some men who whilst they can blot out of their ears a couple of women, somehow it feels like an assault on them to actually have to listen to a number of women in authority talking confidently, and they then do a backlash."

"Mr Johnson’s dishonesty if left unchecked would have contaminated the whole of government, allowing misleading to become commonplace and thus eroding standards which are essential for the health of our democracy. There is no impunity for wrongdoing. Even if you’re the prime minister – especially if you’re the prime minister – you must tell the truth to parliament."

"[After an intervention by Jacob Rees-Mogg on her tweets, which he said had a "perception of bias": I] made it my business to find out whether or not it would mean that the government would not have confidence in me if I continued to chair the committee. [...] I was assured that I should continue the work that the House had mandated with the appointment that the House had put me into and so I did just that."

"You have been there and seen it with your own eyes [...] If I was going at 100mph, and saw the speedometer saying 100mph, it would be a bit odd, wouldn't it, if I said somebody assured me that I wasn't? Because it's what you've seen with your own eyes."

"I'm sure nobody wants to know this, but my husband does all the cleaning - rather too much cleaning. It is too clean, the house!"

"Next he will be foxtrotting down to the Tory party's fundraising ball, auctioning City internships for the children of the highest bidder. Is that not the Government's idea of social mobility?"

"For many young people, social mobility now means a bus down to the job centre."

"I'm afraid you gave up the right to pontificate on social mobility when you abolished educational maintenance allowance [EMA], trebled tuition fees and betrayed a generation of young people."

"If he votes against, that's the only principled position. If he abstains, it's a cop-out; if he votes for, it's a sell-out."

"Now, many of us in the Labour Party are conservationists - and we all love the red squirrel. But there is one ginger rodent which we never want to see again - Danny Alexander."

"Although he is disappointed, I know he will step forward and play a really important part in Labour’s future."

"Although it was a very close election, I don't think it was a polarised election. It was a tough fought contest but it was not a divisive contest. Although he won by a whisker I think the party will unite behind Ed Miliband."

"This reckless Tory Budget would not be possible without the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems denounced early cuts; now they are backing them. They denounced VAT increases; now they are voting for them. How could they support everything they fought against? How could they let down everyone who voted for them? How could they let the Tories so exploit them? Do they not see that they are just a fig leaf? The Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary is just the Chancellor's fig leaf. The Deputy Prime Minister is just the Prime Minister's fig leaf. The Lib Dems' leaders have sacrificed everything they ever stood for to ride in ministerial cars and to ride on the coat tails of the Tory Government. Twenty-two Liberal Democrat ministerial jobs have been bought at the cost of tens of thousands of other people's. The Liberal Democrats used to stand up for people's jobs, but now they only stand up for their own. Look at the Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Twickenham. Mr Speaker,the House has noticed his remarkable transformation in the past few weeks from national treasure to Treasury poodle. They have no mandate for this Budget; this Budget has no legitimacy. Even if the Lib Dems will not speak up for jobs, we will. Even if they will not fight for fairness, we will, and even if they will not protest against Tory broken promises, we will."

"The Chancellor has delivered his first budget but it's the same old Tories; hitting hardest at those who can least afford it and breaking their promises. This is true to form for the Tories, but it includes things that the Liberal Democrats have always fought against. Surely they cannot vote for this."

"This is a very crucial period and we have got five fantastic candidates. All of them would make excellent leaders of the Party."

"While the happy couple are enjoying the thrill of the rose garden, the in-laws are saying that they are just not right for each other. We keep telling them that they cannot pay couples to stay together, and it is clear that it will take more than a three-quid-a-week tax break to keep this marriage together."

"I don’t agree with all-male leaderships. Men cannot be left to run things on their own. I think it’s a thoroughly bad thing to have men-only leadership."

"I am a very big admirer of Hillary's and I am an admirer of Obama as well."

"The Labour Party is the sister Party for the Democrats and their progressive views are the ones that we are most aligned with."

"Harman: Commenting on the question of Sarah Palin, I think that men in politics underestimate women in politics at their peril, and I think that - although I strongly, strongly disagree with very many of the policies she's putting forward - I think she's speaking to the fact that many women feel that they're working hard, they're bringing up their families, they've got a viewpoint on life and the political system excludes them and she has touched that nerve in America. I mean, I don't agree with her politics but I think that she has touched a nerve and I think that then places a big challenge to the Democrats to make sure that they, as a Party which has long championed equality and equality for women that they actually match them and gear up their act. David Dimbleby: You admire her? Harman: I think that she's tough, I don't agree with her politics, I wouldn't vote for her if I was in the States, but I think that she is impressive, yes. But I would rather see the Democrats getting, you know, an even more impressive woman right up at the front."

"It wouldn't be possible because there aren't enough airports for all the men who'd want to flee the country."

"Hague: I'd like to congratulate the Leader of the House on being the first female Labour member ever to answer Prime Minister's Questions. She must be proud, three decades on, to be following in the footsteps of Margaret Thatcher, who we on this side of the House and the Prime Minister so admire. Harman: Well I thank him for his congratulations but I would ask him, why is he asking the questions today? Because he is not the Shadow Leader of the House - the Shadow Leader of the House is sitting next to him! Is this the situation in the modern Conservative Party; that women should be seen but not heard? And if I may, perhaps I could offer the Shadow Leader of the House a bit of sisterly advice: she should not let him get away with it! Hague: Turning to domestic issues, I was going to be nice to the Rt. Hon. Lady - she has had a difficult week and she had to explain yesterday that she dresses in accordance with wherever she goes; she wears a helmet to a building site; wears Indian clothes to Indian parts of her constituency; presumably, when she goes to a Cabinet meeting, she dresses as a clown. Harman: Well I would just start by saying that if I'm looking for advice on what to wear and what not to wear, the very last man I would look to for advice would be the man in the baseball cap!"

"I am in the Labour Party because I am a feminist. I am in the Labour Party because I believe in equality."

"Yes I did when I was at university 30 years ago, just for a short time."

"He is demanding of his colleagues, but he is demanding of himself because he wants to change things for the better."

"images of children should only be considered pornographic if it could be proven the subject suffered"

"Not all civil servants admire strong political leadership. But if you want to change things for the better you need strong political leadership."

"She is either thick or criminally disingenuous [...] Her only policy, her only raison d’être, is a particularly vacuous feminism dating from a sixth-form common room in about 1973. Were this a serious commitment and grounded in reality, one might respect her for it and even agree. But it never is grounded in reality. It is the perpetual shrieking of an idiot."

"She is one of certain, particular women who are of the opinion that they have a god-given right to be amongst the chosen."

"When I had been at primary school, I was very good at writing essays. It was a big thing. My essays were so good they would get pinned up on the wall and read out to the rest of the class"

"You're shadow international development secretary not an internet troll."

"Thanks Diane. I hope we can all agree that this debate should be about Syria not UK party politics"

"Compare the blond Etonian [Boris Johnson] to Britain’s first black woman MP, and you see how racist and sexist 21st-century century Britain remains. No matter how great the sin, how brazen the deceit, how lethally complacent the politician, he gets to come back again and again, and fills his pockets while doing so. Abbott can't even enjoy an M&S mojito on the tube without it becoming a major scandal. She has faced racial bullying – including from within her own party – that would have broken others. Little of that is remembered, and none of it helps."

"To counter her argument that the "prejudice" experienced by Irish, Jewish and Traveller people is not a patch on the "racism" suffered by black people, I cannot improve on the letter from someone whose family left a city in Poland where more than 99% of Jews were exterminated for their race and whose experiences of British antisemitism includes having Nazi insignia brandished in their face. As the anonymous writer says: "To compare those experiences to the struggles of redheads is incomprehensible." Quite."

"Numbers are a polite way of expressing hostility to migration as a whole."

"[Remaining in the EU would be the] best option for the country and my constituents"

"Another vote would be the democratic thing to do to move Brexit forward."

"If you want people to participate and be interested, part of that is to have a political class that looks like the population as a whole."

"The British people and British workers are paying a big price for chaotic Brexit"

"I hope ex-members will continue to work with Labour on issues like homelessness, the benefit system, the NHS and most of all fighting this Tory Brexit"

"[We will table an amendment to reject the deal and] prevent the chaos of the UK crashing out of the EU"

"The referendum vote will be honoured and we will come out of the EU next spring"