education-ministers-of-the-united-kingdom

"I speak for the government on this matter, and I can be crystal clear with you that we welcome the ruling."

"I think it is important and welcome that the supreme court have put beyond doubt that providers can make sure that is done on the basis of biological sex [...] I do believe it is important that when women have experienced male violence they are able to heal, that they are able to access the therapeutic support that is required. What they have said consistently, and what campaigners have worked for over many decades, is to ensure that that provision does exist and can be single-sex. And the ruling has made that clear, and made it clear beyond any doubt."

"The deputy head teacher, Mr Hurst, who was a very fierce character, sent a message to me in class and said he wanted to see me in his office immediately. He said he'd got the list of students who'd signed up for this trip to Oxford [University] and my name wasn't on it, and he expected my name to be on it by the end of the day. The year that I went to Oxford there were six of us that went to Oxford or Cambridge from my state school, which was the best they'd ever achieved."

"Before I was an MP I managed a women's refuge, so I know more than most how important it is that women, especially those who have experienced male violence, sexual violence and trauma, are able to access safe therapeutic spaces, and alongside that, that we make sure that everyone in our society is treated with dignity and respect."

"We need to get back on track but before we can do that, there's something we need to say: sorry. Sorry on behalf of the Conservative parliamentary party who let you down, and we have to be better, much better, and under my leadership, we will be. The British people are never wrong. The British people told us to go and sort ourselves out. Let’s not make them tell us again."

"I had to ring my private secretary in the Foreign Office saying 'can you cancel meetings because I need to go home', and he said 'is everything okay minister?' I tried to say Susie might have cancer, I just couldn't get the words out, I couldn't speak - I like to talk, but I just couldn't speak. I said I'll text you, and, you know, this organisation is amazing. Liz Truss was my boss at the time, she was absolutely amazing. I went home, Susie and I talked it through, and I tried to ring again to explain what was going on - and I still couldn't say a word. For the next couple of hours everything was done on WhatsApp, and it really hit me, I never felt anything like that before."

"[Referring to his wife] a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night [was] was not really illegal if it's only a little bit."

"I disregard much of what Nigel [Farage] says. He's a showman. He likes getting attention. He does things and says things so broadcasters like you ask serious politicians like me questions like this. And, the bottom line is, I'm just not going to play Nigel's game. He does these things to get attention. And, just like a spoiled child, I don't think he should be rewarded for doing so."

"Let’s be enthusiastic, relatable, positive, optimistic. Let's be more normal."

"They want to make sure that football fans are safe, secure and enjoy themselves, and they know that that means they are going to have to make some compromises in terms of what is an Islamic country with a very different set of cultural norms to our own. One of the things I would say for football fans is, you know, please do be respectful of the host nation. They are trying to ensure that people can be themselves and enjoy the football, and I think with a little bit of flex and compromise at both ends, it can be a safe, secure and exciting World Cup."

"[Ensuring a long marriage means your wife is] someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there."

"I don't live in London, I live in Yorkshire, I live in a working class constituency. I've known Jon [Lansman] for many years – Jon's been around from the Bennite days. I'm afraid the working classes have always been a big disappointed for Jon and his cult. [[Jeremy Corbyn|[Jeremy] Corbyn]] was a disaster on the doorstep. Everyone knew that he couldn't lead the working class out of a paper bag. Now Jon's developed this Momentum group, this party within a party, aiming to keep the purity, the culture of betrayal goes on. You'll hear it more and more now over the next couple of days as this little cult get their act together. I want them out of the party. I want Momentum gone. Go back to your student politics and your little left wing."

"I am sorry to hear of the increasing friction between Hindus and Muhammedans in the N.W.F.P. and the Punjab. One hardly knows what to wish for; unity of ideas and action would be very dangerous politically, divergence of ideas and collision are administratively troublesome. Of the two the latter is the least risky, though it throws anxiety and responsibility upon those on the spot where the friction exists."

"There can be a Fascism of the Left as well as Fascism of the Right."

"We are going to fight to save the party and by God we think we can. We are going to start fighting for a Labour Party worthy of the name."

"I continue to believe that the best opportunity we have to advance our socialist objectives lies in forging the closest possible links with our fellow socialists and trade unions across the Channel."

"There are other reasons to be worried. One is the increasingly anti-parliamentarian rhetoric in which Benn engages. When he speaks about the primacy of the activists, he virtually parrots Lenin. He speaks a language which despises the ordinary party worker, again Lenin-like. The supremacy of party and activist is a central Leninist tenet, and Shirley believes she has read more Lenin and Marx than Benn has. She thinks he does not really know what he is saying. Also, that he is to some extent being used by people much harder than he is: Maynard-type, Richardson-type, Militant sympathisers."

"There was a feeling of tremendous dedication in the air, a feeling that we didn't care what happened, this is the way we were going to vote, we were going to put our names on the line... I think it was the beginning of the ultimate split in the Labour Party into an SDP and a Labour Party, and that was, when I look back on it, really where it all began."

"We are seeing the increase of unemployment throughout the industrial world, and it is a problem for which we still have no real answer."

"David has had the idea that the voters to try and win are defecting Tories... I personally have always held that we must try to replace the Labour Party."

"I...thought it a good idea to run through my speech with her, which I did, and she said it was more or less all right... She merely asked for a change at the end where I referred to a possible revival of Liberal and Social Democratic Britain. She said, 'Couldn't you use small letters and leave out the "and" – "liberal social democratic Britain"?' Thinking that if Paris was worth a Mass, Shirley was certainly worth an 'and' (and a lower case) I decided to do so, after which we rang off on terms of great amity. She said she was sure we would all be together in six months or so."

"Bill and I were much more of the Labour ethos than probably David or Roy were... It seemed much more a whole life that was going and I guess that we were more reluctant to face the fact that probably the Labour Party was by that time irrecoverable."

"Shirley is, without doubt, the most reactionary person I know."

"Recently I was in Berwick Street, Soho, where I often work, when a man said to me outside a studio: "I'll never forgive you for what you did to our grammar schools." The man looked extremely respectable and I said to him: "What did you say?" And he said: "I'll never forgive you for what you did to our grammar schools, and neither will my wife." I was suddenly very irritated with him: "What are you talking about, you silly bugger, what have I done to grammar schools?" My aggression obviously startled him, for he looked at me rather more carefully, cleared his throat and said, "I do beg your pardon, I thought you were Shirley Williams," and he went off muttering."

"Shirley is surrounded by a beatific light that shields her from the harm and criticism which would be heaped on ordinary people."

"In recent months she had begun to pick more of a One Nation way through the post-Gove, post-Brexit, post-election rubble. Unlike previous ministers, she was prepared to talk to the trade unions, was consulting on strengthening teacher qualifications and a new sex education curriculum, and only last week announced a modest budget to promote literacy programmes for disadvantaged students. However, her fate may have been sealed by her scepticism over free schools and the determined promotion of her own “social mobility action plan” (the Tories just will not give up on this jaded term) proposals publicly rubbished by [[w:Nick Timothy|[Nick] Timothy]] in the Sun. In the days and hours running up to her departure, support for Greening within the educational world was surprisingly strong. There was a real anger at the idea that Toby Young might stay and she would go – and not just because of the journalist’s long history of sexist tweets. Unlike Young and numerous others of his ilk, Greening is a Tory who is, at least, prepared to listen rather than lecture, to carefully consider rather than constantly broadcast their own views on everything under the educational sun."

"Unless a future Conservative party has some authentic purpose, there will be no future for it."

"I don't think I would be able to stay part of a party that was simply a Brexit party that had crashed us out of the European Union."

"We'll be dragging Remain voters out of the EU for a deal that means still complying with many EU rules, but now with no say on shaping them. It's not what they want, and on top of that when they hear that Leave voters are unhappy, they ask, 'What's the point?' For Leavers, this deal simply does not deliver the proper break from the European Union that they wanted."

"You can't pick & choose on human rights and equality. Children should understand a modern and diverse Britain they're growing up in."

"I represent a very young constituency here in London. The bottom line is that looking ahead, if Brexit doesn't work for young people in our country in the end it will not be sustainable. When they take their place here they will seek to improve or undo what we've done and make it work for them. So we do absolutely have a duty in this House to look ahead and ensure that whatever we get is sustainable and works for them."

"Free movement of labour was never meant to be an unqualified principle, irrespective of how it might have worked on the ground. We do need to see action taken in relation to negotiation with the EU. [The government is] taking a fundamental look at some of the rules that allow unrestricted immigration."

"Today's a good day to say I'm in a happy same sex relationship, I campaigned for Stronger In but sometimes you're better off out!"

"I think people need to get behind her [Theresa May]. I think she is doing an important job for our country. We need to support her in that impossible, almost, task that she has negotiating Brexit."

"The party has now vacated the position of natural party of government. In today’s refashioned political landscape, they are perhaps no longer even the natural party of opposition."

"I want us to stay in the EU so that future generations can continue to benefit from the influence and prosperity that comes from our membership of the single market. The alternative, Brexit, would see our young people's prospects knocked sideways by an economic shock and years of uncertainty."

"Make no mistake - a third, short runway will not be a long-term solution to our country's hub capacity question that we currently face. Britain ... deserves a much longer-term aviation plan than it has had in the past."

"The recent outbreak of violence in Rakhine state has forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes. Many are living without basic water and sanitation. We must act now to relieve the immediate suffering and to ensure that conditions do not worsen to cause further loss of life. British aid will provide emergency sanitation, clean water, healthcare and nutrition to those affected by this terrible violence. But Britain cannot do this alone and we call on other donor countries to join in this relief operation."

"Local areas who want more grammar places should be able to have them and similarly, local areas who want to stick with the existing schools that they're happy with will be able to do that too."

"Women and children are vulnerable to brutal violence and some have lost everything... We cannot ignore what is happening to the Syrian people"

"[Having to choose between deal and no-deal] appears to be an attempt by the executive to frustrate our sovereign Parliament"

"It's going to happen, we are going to leave the European Union"

"As a constituency Member of Parliament, I receive a barrage of views on both sides of the EU debate all the time, so I am very conscious, even if it may not be my own personal position, of what other people in the country and my constituency are thinking."

"All this sabre-rattling this weekend is not coming from the section of the party that I represent. It is coming from the pro-Brexit section of the party. And it is deeply unhelpful."

"[The UK is being asked to experiment with a new trade policy without any idea of its costs. That is not a manifestation of democracy, it is a tyranny, a distortion of the referendum result and MPs should call it out."

"A Canada-style deal would take years to negotiate and might not give the kind of access its supporters hoped for"

"It's incumbent on politicians to make the case that it is not for blaming immigrants about jobs and housing. Actually, it is up to us to provide the solutions and support to people."

"We would have been better off if we had stayed, but that is what democracy is all about and the British people have been clear and I will accept that decision."

"Seriously? Our two most senior female politicians are judged for their legs not what they said #appallingsexism"

"It's clear, that if Britain leaves Europe it will be young people who suffer the most, left in limbo while we struggle to find and then negotiate an alternative model. In doing so we risk that lost generation becoming a reality."