Historians From England

"And like every woman who has ever preached repentance to unregenerate youth, she dwelt on the sin of an empty life, which always seems so much more scandalous in the country, where people rise early to see if a new strawberry has happened during the night."

"Reginald, in his way, was a pioneer. None of the rest of his family had anything approaching Titian hair or a sense of humour, and they used primroses as a table decoration. It follows that they never understood Reginald, who came down late to breakfast, and nibbled toast, and said disrespectful things about the universe. The family ate porridge, and believed in everything, even the weather forecast."

"And the sleeper, eye unlidding, Heard a voice for ever bidding Much farewell to Dolly Gray; Turning weary on his truckle- Bed he heard the honey-suckle Lauded in apiarian lay."

"Mother, may I go and maffick, Tear around and hinder traffic?"

"Which reminds me of the man I read of in some sacred book who was given a choice of what he most desired. And because he didn't ask for titles and honours and dignities, but only for immense wealth, these other things came to him also." "I am sure you didn't read about him in any sacred book." "Yes; I fancy you will find him in Debrett."

"The fashion just now is a Roman Catholic frame of mind with an Agnostic conscience: you get the mediaeval picturesqueness of the one with the modern conveniences of the other."

"To have reached thirty," said Reginald, "is to have failed in life."

"You can't expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return."

"To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to Heaven prematurely."

"I am not collecting copies of the cheaper editions of Omar Khayyám. I gave the last four that I received to the lift-boy, and I like to think of him reading them, with FitzGerald's notes, to his aged mother. Lift-boys always have aged mothers; shows such nice feeling on their part, I think."

"It is an admitted fact that the ordinary tomtit of commerce has a sounder aesthetic taste than the average female relative in the country."

"I found everyone talking nervously and feverishly of the weather and the war in South Africa, except Reginald, who was reclining in a comfortable chair with the dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just after it had desolated entire villages."

"Reginald in his wildest lapses into veracity never admits to being more than twenty-two."

"Put that bloody cigarette out!"

"I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart."

"We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other married couples they sometimes live apart."

"Getting something like this wrong is not just an academic error or an argument at conference. It affects the jobs of millions. Unlike the ERM, the single currency is for all time. British business could find itself trapped in a burning building with no exits."

"[I]f I were looking for advice on what to wear or what not to wear, the very last person I would look to is the man in the baseball cap."

"To make matters worse, they have elected a foetus as the party leader. I bet a lot of them wish they had not voted against abortion now!"

"I don’t envy the remaining Tory MPs. It was a hard job in 1997 and this time it will be even tougher. There's a moment when you understand you face the challenge of your lifetime, but that's a sign you’ve only just begun to grasp it. For the Conservative Party, the next big move can start a recovery or bring extinction."

"Those of us who have been in public life have all had the privilege of meeting extraordinary people — soldiers who kept fighting when injured, Paralympic athletes who triumphed, small businesses that learnt from failure to succeed — and have seen the power of moving on without rancour or self-pity. Political leaders would do well to aspire to those attributes and to shoulder their own share of responsibility. If you became prime minister, with a majority behind you and a decent term in front of you, but were overthrown amid chaos, there is indeed someone to blame. It’s you."

"Labour looks less alarming than under Neil Kinnock but it is also a lot less exciting than under either him or Blair. The party is not the wave of the future, as it was in the early days of New Labour. Sir Keir Starmer's team are currently interesting because they are judged to be close to power, rather than being close to power because they are judged to be interesting. And excitement doesn't even come into it."

"In the distant days when I was Tory leader I had a private rule never to appeal for party unity. This was mainly because, if your request as a leader for unity is promptly followed by more infighting, you look even less credible and in charge than before you asked. It was also a recognition that unity is seldom produced by calling for it. Unity arises from a leader creating the conditions for it."

"[On the history of former prime ministers and their successors] Now think of Boris Johnson. All of these feelings will apply to him. He is going to be [[Edward Heath|[Edward] Heath]] with jokes added in, and [[Margaret Thatcher|[Margaret] Thatcher]] with consistency taken out, all rolled into a bundle of resentment, denial, attention-seeking and attempted vindication that will be a permanent nightmare for the new prime minister. That he wants revenge on Rishi Sunak is already apparent, but if Liz Truss is elected, she will face the identical problem. The chances of her loyalty to him being repaid are close to zero. Boris lives his life as a performance, and he will want the next act to fill every seat in the theatre of British political life. The Conservative Party had no choice but to remove Johnson from office. His standards of governance and veracity had fallen below what reasonable people could defend. The downside is that the party will always have the problem of what he will say next."

"[The Chequers Brexit proposals are] the most that can be achieved within the inevitable and inescapable constraints"

"Imagine going back to the people of this country and saying 'you got this wrong in the referendum, you may have turned out in record numbers and most of the country voted to leave but nevertheless we think you got it wrong and we are going to run it again'. Imagine the hate-filled campaign that would divide this country. I do not think that is a price worth paying."

"[Philip Hammond] has evidently been trying to persuade his cabinet colleagues that we should be seeking to stay in the EU single market and customs union during a transition and 'implementation' phase lasting to 2022, followed by a free trade deal with our former partners after that. This is seen by longstanding advocates of leaving as a 'soft' position or a climbdown. But in reality it is a plan to rescue Brexit from an approaching disaster."

"[There is potential for Brexit to become the] greatest economic, diplomatic and constitutional muddle in the modern history of the UK, with unknowable consequences for the country, the government and the Brexit project itself"

"The electorate voted to leave the EU, and therefore we leave. What is more, the number of people who voted to do so was higher than the number of votes cast for any government in our history. To me and many of my former colleagues in government who preferred to remain, the argument was over."

"If you are less influential in crafting the overall approach of the EU you end up with less influence in the rest of the world."

"Any [Brexit] deal is bound to be full of compromises which one group or another in Parliament finds difficult to stomach."

"To end up destroying the UK and gravely weakening the European Union would not be a very clever day's work. So, even as a long-standing critic of so much of that struggling organisation, I am unlikely in 2016 to vote to leave it."

"There has never been any doubt in my mind that we should have an embassy in Tehran if the circumstances allowed"

"We are determined to reach a diplomatic settlement to the Iran nuclear crisis."

"[Publishing the bill is a] demonstration of our commitment to a referendum [on the EU]"

"We will continue to work closely with the Somalia government on shared priorities, which include tackling conflict, countering terrorism and piracy, providing humanitarian assistance, and promoting UK interests in Somalia"

"I welcome the formation of the new Israeli Government. I warmly congratulate Prime Minister Netanyahu on his second consecutive term in office at this important time in Israel’s history. We look forward to working with his new Government to further develop our strong bilateral relations and to advance our successful partnerships in areas such as trade, security, science, technology and higher education. As I have said previously, there is no more urgent foreign policy priority in 2013 than making progress towards achieving the two-state solution. I have urged the United States to lead international efforts to revive the peace process and pledged that the UK will spare no effort in mobilising European Union and Arab states behind decisive moves for peace. I welcome President Obama’s visit to the region next week. I call on Prime Minister Netanyahu, and President Abbas, to demonstrate leadership and courage in working with the international community to secure the peace which is so strongly in the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians."

"It is about... making a success of membership of the EU but also with democratic consent for that in its modern form and the best form that we can bring about."

"We also need to see how changes in the eurozone are affecting the EU and how that affects this country and the relationship of the countries together. But when we have done that there is a strong case for fresh consent in this country and the people of this country having their say."

"We want to get a better relationship with the EU - there are changes we want in that relationship"

"It is strongly in the interests of Syria, of the wider region and of the United Kingdom that we support them and deny space to extremist groups"

"[Without intelligence agencies] terrorist groups would have free rein to harm UK citizens here and abroad"

"The very making of these allegations undermined Britain's standing in the world as a country that upholds international law and abhors torture. As a government we understand how important it is that we not only uphold our values and international law, but that we are seen to do so."

"[The EU has] too much power.. there should be powers that are returned to this country"

"I described the euro as a burning building with no exits and so it has proved for some of the countries in it"

"It remains the case that the single biggest terrorist threat to this country remains al-Qaeda, or people inspired by al-Qaeda, but what has happened is a reminder that it is not the only source of violent extremist or terrorist attack."

"This country needs an increased capability to protect ourselves, not only against cyber attacks on the government but on businesses and on individuals"

"[T]he Conservative Party is like an absolute monarchy, but this is qualified by regicide. If we take any form of PR back to our parliamentary colleagues, they will be looking for new leadership"

"[To Harriet Harman] Before turning to domestic issues, I was going to be nice to the right hon. and learned Lady. She has had a difficult week. She had to explain yesterday that she dresses in accordance with wherever she is going: she wears a helmet on a building site, she wears Indian clothes in the parts of her constituency with a large representation of Indian people, so when she goes to a Cabinet meeting, she presumably dresses as a clown. As I said, I was going to be nice to her before her previous response."

"To see how the post of a permanent President of the European Council could evolve is not difficult even for the humblest student of politics, and it is, of course, rumoured that one Tony Blair may be interested in the job. Now, if that makes us uncomfortable on these benches, just imagine how it is viewed in Downing Street! I must warn Ministers opposite that having tangled with Tony Blair across this Dispatch Box on literally hundreds of occasions, I know his mind almost as well as they do. I can tell them that when he goes off to a major political conference of a centre-right party and simultaneously refers to himself as a socialist, he is on manoeuvres, and is busily building coalitions as only he can. We can all picture the scene at a European Council sometime next year. Picture the face of our poor Prime Minister as the name of "Blair" is nominated by one President and Prime Minister after another: the look of utter gloom on his face at the nauseating, glutinous praise oozing from every Head of Government, the rapid revelation of a majority view, agreed behind closed doors when he, as usual, was excluded. Never would he regret more no longer being in possession of a veto: the famous dropped jaw almost hitting the table, as he realises there is no option but to join in. And then the awful moment when the motorcade of the President of Europe sweeps into Downing Street. With gritted teeth and bitten nails: the Prime Minister emerging from his door with a smile of intolerable anguish; the choking sensation as the words, "Mr President", are forced from his mouth. And then, once in the Cabinet room, the melodrama of, "When will you hand over to me?" all over again."