"There is a danger that we legislate to feel good, not to do good. Nowhere is this truer than in social legislation. The warm glow comes quickly after passing a piece of law which is designed to raise standards for those in jobs; the chill of lost jobs because of lost competitiveness is felt more slowly... We should make our labour markets more flexible and job-friendly, and secure greater skill levels and cost control. That means not introducing new limitations on the labour market."
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Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomDiplomats of the United KingdomUniversity of Oxford facultyGovernment ministersConservative Party (UK) politicians
Original Language: English
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Sources
‘Making the Union Work’, Studia Diplomatica, Vol. 47, No. 2 (1994), p. 18
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Hurd
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Douglas Hurd
Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, (born 8 March 1930), is a British Conservative politician and diplomat, who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major between 1979 and 1995. He left the Commons at the 1997 general election and was elevated to the peerage on 13 June 1997. He retired from the House of Lords on 9 June 2016.
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