Chancellors Of The Exchequer

"I have mentioned his jealousy and ill-treatment of the Favourite Lord Bute]; his manners made him as distasteful to the King, as his engrossing fondness for power had made him to the Favourite... that awkward man of ways and means, whom nature had fitted for no employment less than a courtier's, fatigued the King with such nauseous and endless harangues, that, lamenting being daily exposed to such a political pedant, the King said to Lord Bute of Grenville, "When he has wearied me for two hours, he looks at his watch to see if he may not tire me for an hour more.""

"He was a man born to public business, which was his luxury and amusement. An Act of Parliament was in itself entertaining to him, as was proved when he stole a turnpike bill out of somebody's pocket at a concert and read it in a corner in despite of all the efforts of the finest singers to attract his attention. Order and economy were so natural to him that he told me from the first office he ever held till he became minister he had made it an invariable rule to add the year's salary to his capital contenting himself with carrying the interest the succeeding year into his expenses. His prudence rather bordered upon parsimony."

"Mr. Grenville was, confessedly, the ablest man of business in the House of Commons, and, though not popular, of great authority there from his spirit, knowledge, and gravity of character. His faults, however, had been capital, and to himself most afflicting. His injudicious Stamp Act had exposed us to the risk of seeing all our Colonies revolt."

"Though Mr. Grenville is a most disagreeable man to do business with, he is nevertheless the fittest person to be at the head of this country."

"I told His Majesty that I came into his service to preserve the constitution of my country, and to prevent any undue and unwarrantable force being put upon the Crown; that upon these principles I should continue to act, and would endeavour, as far as I was able, to assist the King in the difficulties he lay under; but that the success of these endeavours must depend upon the King himself, and upon the cordial union of all such as were attached to his service."

"Ungrateful people of America! Bounties have been extended to them. When I had the honour of serving the crown, while you yourselves were loaded with an enormous debt, you have given bounties on their lumber, on their iron, their hemp, and many other articles. You have relaxed, in their favour, the Act of Navigation, that palladium of the British commerce; and yet I have been abused in all the public papers as an enemy to the trade of America."

"The late Lord Essex informed the Editor that one of the Under Secretaries of that day had often said to him, "Mr. Grenville lost America because he read the American despatches, which none of his predecessors ever did." There is no doubt that the business of the colonies was despatched in a very slovenly manner—or to use Mr. Burke's words, it was treated "with a salutary neglect;" and the many volumes of Minutes of Colonial Affairs still preserved at the Board of Trade, relate generally to such insignificant transactions as to be almost ludicrous."

"H[is] M[ajesty] continued this Evening to speak very kindly of Lord North, & said He was the Man He loved best in the World."

"Lord North is a good man, unlike the others. He is a good man."

"Did freedom depend upon every individual subject being represented in that House? Certainly not; for that House, constituted as it was, represented the whole kingdom. Freedom depended on a very different circumstance. He was free, because he lived in a country governed by equal laws. Where the highest and the lowest were governed by the same laws, where there was no distinction of persons, there freedom might be said to exist as purely and as perfectly as in the nature of things it could exist."

"Am I to hear myself charged as the author of our present misfortunes? and— [Many gentlemen cried across the house, “You are, you are.”]"

"Oh, God! it is all over!"

"I was not, when I was honoured with office, a Minister of chance, or a creature of whom Parliament had no experience. I was found among you when I was so honoured. I had been long known to you. In consequence, I obtained your support; when that support was withdrawn, I ceased to be a Minister. I was the creature of Parliament in my rise; when I fell I was its victim. I came among you without connection. It was here I was first known: you raised me up; you pulled me down."

"If you mean there should not be a Government by departments, Isigma with you; I think it a very bad system. There should be one man, or a Cabinet to govern the whole, and direct every measure. Government by departments was not brought in by me. I found it so, and had not vigor and resolution to put an end to it. The King ought to be treated with all sort of respect and attention, but the appearance of power is all that a king of this country can have."

"The referendum is not binding."

"When we negotiate trade agreements in the future, we will be pressing other countries to open up their public procurement processes to genuine, fair, international competition. It would be totally ridiculous to abandon that principle now to give into not only constituency pressures, which I understand, but otherwise nationalist nonsense that ought to be ignored."

"If a Brexiteer majority still wishes to persist in leaving, once we have made some progress and it’s obvious we’re getting there, you can invoke Article 50 again and leave fairly rapidly. To me, that seems the only rational way in which we can precede. But common sense has gone out of the window."

"All political careers are a rollercoaster."

"[On Margaret Thatcher] She was a bizarre character. She was one of the most unlikely human beings I ever met. If you'd told me that this woman would become Prime Minister, I mean no dislike of her at all, I'd have thought that was ridiculous."

"I don't think the Conservative Party could win an election in 1,000 years on this ultra right-wing programme."

"We are all in agreement about the principles of the national health service ...it should be provided free at the point of treatment, according to clinical need and largely funded out of taxation."

"I don’t want the new leader to make me parliamentary under-secretary for nuts and bolts."

"At the moment I save the House of Commons from having Dennis Skinner as father of the house by 25 minutes"

"No one has officially told me that I have lost the Tory whip. The fault’s probably mine. I’m notorious for only using my mobile phone for outgoing calls: nobody knows my London number and I certainly don’t do anything online. So there may somewhere be an email or text message or something telling me, but I gather from the media that there’s no doubt that I’ve lost the whip. My status otherwise is completely unclear."

"I wouldn't reject it if it was the only way forward."

"If the Conservative Party cannot think of anything else to do it has a leadership contest."

"There could be - I'm not saying that there are - there could be some cultural reasons from the communities that these men came from that could lead to this kind of behaviour."

"When it comes to gang-based child exploitation it is self-evident to anyone who cares to look that if you look at all the recent high-profile cases there is a high proportion of men that have Pakistani heritage."

"I'm the British home secretary and my job is to protect the British public, to do what I think is right to protect the British public. That's my number one job."

"We need to make people understand that if you are a middle-class drug user and you sort of think, 'Well, I'm not doing any damage, I know what I'm doing,' well, there's a whole supply chain that goes into that. Youths whose lives have been abused, the county lines, other drug takers being abused, crime being encouraged. You are not innocent - no one is innocent if they are taking illegal drugs."

"[It is] unequivocally, crystal clear this was the act of the Russian state - two Russian nationals sent to Britain with the sole purpose of carrying out a reckless assassination attempt"

"Across our immigration system, no-one should face a demand to supply DNA evidence and no-one should have been penalised for not providing it."

"[The UK will remain] one of the safest countries in the world [in the event of a no-deal Brexit]."

"It immediately impacted me. I'm a second-generation migrant, my parents came to this country from Pakistan, just like the Windrush generation, obviously a different part of the world, from South Asia not the Caribbean, but other than that, similar in almost every way."

"It was a clear result, clear instructions were issued... by the British people to their politicians saying: We need a decision. Now it's our job as politicians to get on with it."

"[There must be] no safe spaces in the UK for terrorists to spread their vile views, or for them to plan and carry out attacks and no safe spaces online for terrorist propaganda and technical expertise to be shared, and for people to be radicalised in a matter of weeks"

"We are stronger, safer, and better off in a reformed EU. Survey after survey shows that small businesses - the backbone of our economy - want to stay inside the EU rather than take a leap in the dark."

"The fallout from a ‘leave’ vote this summer would only add to economic turbulence that is, quite possibly, about to engulf the world."

"[The High Court case that could delay the Brexit process is] a clear attempt to frustrate the will of the British people"

"I've been impressed by the progress the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Apple have made on counter-terrorism. Now I want to see the same level of commitment from these companies and others for child sexual exploitation."

"FGM is child abuse. I am determined to stamp out this despicable and medieval practice. We will do all we can to protect girls at risk."

"My own family's heritage is Muslim. Myself and my four brothers were brought up to believe in God, but I do not practise any religion. My wife is a practising Christian and the only religion practised in my house is Christianity."

"I didn't expect to have this kind of opportunity to serve the country at this level so soon, but I take it as a huge privilege,"

"People should not be taking this very dangerous journey and, if they do, we also need to send a very strong message that you won't succeed. 'You are coming from France, which is a safe country. In almost every case you are claiming asylum in the UK but if you were a real, genuine asylum seeker then you could have done that in another safe country'."

"With a heavy heart and no enthusiasm, I shall be voting for the UK to remain a member of the European Union."

"[Javid acknowledges a "Muslim heritage" but practices no religion] I think deep down he does genuinely care about this stuff [...] Because if you take the definition of Islamophobia, it’s not about religiosity or Islam or whether you're actually a Muslim, it's Muslimness or perceived Muslimness."

"Sajid Javid has seized control of his notoriously bloody minded department."

"Sajid Javid is a true champion of our cause. We cannot thank him enough for all he has done to support Holocaust remembrance – including his strong leadership in the development of the National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre to be built next to Parliament, as well as his recent commitment to fight antisemitism on university campuses. Sajid Javid is held with huge affection by Holocaust survivors and the wider community – we wish him all the best in his new role and thank him for all he has done."

"We want to get a good deal that abolishes the anti-democratic backstop. But if we can't get a good deal, we'll have to leave without one. This additional £2.1bn will ensure we are ready to leave on 31 October - deal or no-deal."

"With 92 days until the UK leaves the European Union it's vital that we intensify our planning to ensure we are ready"