labour-party-uk-politicians

"We just didn't understand that they [the Islamists] were not just anti-Western but on a different plane altogether and this is still not widely understood in the UK... We can be as nice as pie to them but that's not the issue. They are on a mission that has taken them outside anything we can say, a mission to destroy completely our way of life... Because they think it's 'just a few extremists,' they are continuing to track the threat of big spectacular attacks, looking for example at transfers of materials for bombs, whereas what they should be looking at is what's going on inside people's heads."

"First, a police force which has consistently put protecting itself above protecting people harmed by Hillsborough. Second, collusion between that force and complicit print media. Third, a flawed judicial system that gives the upper hand to those in authority over and above ordinary people. Shamefully, the cover-up continued in this Warrington courtroom. Millions of pounds of public money were spent re-telling discredited lies."

"[on seeking permission to stand as an MP in 2026] It brings with it a poison we should not let enter our city-region. I see this by-election as the frontline of that fight for the Manchester Way and feel I owe it to a city which has given me so much to lead it from the front, despite the risks involved. With your permission to stand, I would run a hopeful and unifying campaign with broad appeal to voters, focusing on the positivity around what we have achieved, whilst at the same time being honest about the alienation people feel from politics."

"Yesterday Andy Burnham sought such permission from the NEC to stand in the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election, which would have led to a mayoral by-election in Greater Manchester.The NEC has decided not to grant Andy Burnham permission to stand. The NEC believes that causing an unnecessary election for the position of Greater Manchester mayor would have a substantial and disproportionate impact on party campaign resources before the local elections and elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd in MayAlthough the party would be confident of retaining the mayoralty, the NEC could not put Labour’s control of Greater Manchester at any riskAndy Burnham is doing a great job as mayor of Greater Manchester. We believe it is in the best interests of the party to avoid an unnecessary mayoral election."

"What we've seen today is a deliberate act of levelling down. I don't believe we can proceed through this pandemic by grinding people down. We need to carry them with us, not crush their spirit."

"My grandparents came to this country after Britain's rulers looted their homeland. We're here, as Sivanandan said, because you were there."

"The only way we can actually change things is to have a Labour government that is bold and ambitious. … I think it's really important to take inspiration from previous governments, especially the Attlee government of '45. We saw a country that was completely destroyed by war and the answers of that Labour government weren't to tinker around the edges."

"Between 2015 and 2019 I had friends and colleagues who worked at the top of the Labour Party, and they can tell you that in parts it was a highly dysfunctional working environment with toxicity and bullying – not from Jeremy, but from some people around him. Power was too centralised. This is not what we need for this emerging project. … Everyone has to feel that they’re involved and the organisation has to be representative of wider society. That also means we can’t soft-pedal our anti-racism. Some people want us to focus solely on the 'economic issues'. But if the politics of class is detached from the politics of race then it is bound to fail – because when our neighbours are being simultaneously targeted for eviction and deportation, that struggle is one and the same."

"Billionaires already have three parties fighting for them. It's time the rest of us had one."

"The people running Labour at the moment need to ask themselves why a young, articulate, talented, extremely dedicated socialist feels she now has no home in the Labour Party and has to leave."

"The biggest threats we all face today aren't military invasions. It's the rise of the far right, it is global pandemics, it is climate catastrophe and economic crises. And NATO cannot solve any of these."

"We should be becoming a more decentralised country because that's where people feel like they can actually change things. Otherwise, things seem distant; things seem like they just happen in Westminster. If we could give combined authorities more power at local government, then that would be really positive."

"I'll continue to use the platform [i.e. TikTok] because I think it's really effective in reaching out to newer audiences, younger audiences and getting out political messages."

"What we need is a politics of fun and joy. We're not interested in meetings where everyone's got a point of order and they talk for twenty minutes each. Do you think the sixteen year-olds who are soon to get the vote will want to sit through that? The new project should engage that generation by embedding itself in mass culture."

"What are our long-term goals? More time with our loved ones, more green space, universal childcare, free public transport, not worrying about bills. These are things that Farage and Starmer don't talk about."

"We're not here to beg for crumbs off the table, we're taking the fucking lot."

"I had never previously thought of myself as privileged, but I realised that because of the sheer accident of where I was born and what passport I held, I was treated differently by the Israeli authorities. I watched as they harassed and abused Palestinians and then related to me as a regular human being."

"It is a sad woman who buys her own perfume."

"We [Wolverhampton] have been a city for 19 years and they need to catch up. Are they that out of touch that they did not bother to look it up?"

"Feminism is, by its very nature, about the validation of difference and Otherness - the female as 'the first step on the road along abnormality'. All I am doing is arguing that we go down that road a little further and pick up a few more allies and friends; if for no other reason than the fact that half of the disabled community are our sisters."

"The Labour Party has strayed from the core values I once shared with the Party. My political beliefs prevent me from compromising my principles for a party that appears to have none. The democratic fabric of the Labour Party has been compromised under your leadership, Keir Starmer, becoming increasingly autocratic that marginalises diverse voices, especially those of women, people of colour, Muslims, and Jews. This betrayal of democratic ideals, along with the party's major shift towards antisemitism and islamophobia, is unacceptable."

"The ideological driven philosophy of the Conservatives that 'if we do not legally have to do it - don't do it at all' is the opposite of what any fair, equal and just society should be."

"What is certain is that disability, the wheelchair, is often much more fascinating than the dullness of the ordinary, i.e., the 'normal'."

"The Labour Party’s commitment to continued austerity and Brexit will further undermine jobs, education, and opportunities in our city. This abandonment of the working class is inexcusable."

"The Labour Party's stance on Palestine is morally wrong and ignores the suffering of the Palestinian people. I support the United Nations and the UN Human Rights Council calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, as well as an immediate ban on arms sales to Israel as well as sanctions."

"This honour is not just for me, but for Wolverhampton itself—a city of resilience, creativity, and community spirit. It belongs to every individual and organisation that works tirelessly to make our city a better place."

"Superficially, he is a black man. He went to Eton, I think; he went to a very expensive prep school, all the way through, the top schools in the country. If you hear him on the Today programme, you wouldn't know he is black."

"As a former minister in the Department of Culture, Media & Sport, I would like the Department to be taken more seriously across government. It tends to be regarded as a small, and relatively inconsequential, government department. Nothing could be further from the truth. It deals with issues that directly affect everyone’s quality of life. The enjoyment of literature and the wider contribution of the creative industries generally is central to that. We will continue to stand up and campaign for that on behalf of the creative industries, but, in particular for the 90,000 writer members of ALCS."

"There will always be more work to be done. We are currently turning our attention to unfair contracts for writers and trying to make sure that writers are aware of their rights and how to ensure they are enforced. As the mother-in-law of a successful published writer, I am well aware of the need to campaign on this!"

"Janet Anderson is a former MP for Rossendale and Darwen, as well as a former Minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). She chaired the All Party Parliamentary Writers Group from 2009 – 2010 and is currently assisting ALCS in our lobbying activities."

"We have been lucky to be supported by so many members of both Houses of Parliament, and Government ministers too. The Rt Hon John Whittingdale MP, former Culture Secretary, and the former Creative Industries Minister, the Rt Hon Ed Vaizey MP, deserve thanks for all their efforts to make this happen. So too does Lord Clement-Jones, who helped to move an earlier amendment in the House of Lords, and has worked tirelessly to help us on this and many other issues of concern to writers; and Baroness Tessa Jowell, who has been a valuable source of advice. Also members of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, particularly Paul Farrelly MP, and current chair, Damian Collins MP. Kevin Brennan MP also helped tremendously. But it would be remiss of me not to mention especially the late Baroness (Ruth) Rendell, who served as secretary of the All Party Writers Group for many years and was always ready to wade in on our behalf. And finally, Dr Jim Parker, former head of UK PLR and now coordinator of PLR International."

"The All Party Writers Group has 61 members now, across both Houses of Parliament and all political parties, including many published writers. It is an invaluable source of support to enable us to speak up for writers, and ensure they are properly rewarded for their work and that their concerns are brought to the attention of those who can make a difference on their behalf."

"The new arrangements will officially take effect from 1 July 2018, and any payments arising from the newly eligible loans will be made in February 2020."

"The great thing is that remote e-book loans will receive the same PLR rate per loan as print titles and audio titles, and the terms for receiving PLR will also remain the same."

"As I said earlier, we believe that writers should be rewarded for their work. PLR is not a huge income stream for most authors: it amounts to 7.82p per loan and is subject to an annual cap of £6,600 per recipient. However, writers will tell you that they find it extremely gratifying to know their books are being read and this provides a source of encouragement for them to continue writing. Writers, illustrators, photographers, translators and editors are also eligible for PLR. The Government has now guaranteed that an annual fund of £6.6 million will be made available for PLR up to 2019."

"The legislation was finally added to the Digital Economy Bill (now the Digital Economy Act) by a last-minute Government amendment following a long-running campaign by ALCS and SoA. We work from the basic position that creators should be rewarded for their work. If they are not, then they may decide not to create any more, which would be seriously bad news for the UK economy. It is estimated that our creative industries generate £8 million every single hour and that, by 2018, the annual figure will be £100 billion. Writers are at the very heart of this. Books, film, television, even computer games: where would any of these be without writers?"

"With the development of e-books, we have long thought that PLR should be extended to the remote lending of e-books by public libraries. Previously, writers received no recognition at all of the value of their work to the public consumption and enjoyment of literature through e-books. To achieve our aim, it would require legislation. We therefore set about the task of lobbying Government ministers and both Houses of Parliament to persuade them there was a need for the moral rights of writers to be acknowledged in the age of developing technology which had facilitated the remote public lending of e-books."

"I remember taking leave of her the night of the award [PEN] and asking whether she might not think of leaving Russia, at least temporarily. She held my hand, smiling, and said, 'Exile is not for me. That way they win'."

"Sometimes they are Afghanis who have worked for us. Sometimes they are Afghanis of a particular minority called the Hazara, who get slaughtered as soon as the Taliban look at them."

"We owed her a debt of gratitude for helping the West reach a far better understanding of the emerging landscape in post-Soviet Russia and for shining a clearer light on the true nature of the occupation of Chechnya, a brutal conflict wilfully misprepresented as Russia's private front in the war on terror. No democracy is worthy of the name if freedom of the press is curtailed or writers and journalists are crushed; yet here was a writer who – at great personal risk – defied state intimidation to speak truth to power."

"This is Schindler's List time. These women were in mortal danger. They were running courts on things like domestic violence and child marriage and many of them locked up [the] Taliban. As soon as [the] Taliban came back they had to flee."

"[On the situation for women in Afghanistan after the 2020–2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan] They were not allowed to leave home without a male escort. They were not allowed to go to work. They were not allowed to continue with their education. Their sex became the limitation on what they could do or be. This is true for all women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban reign."

"I have still got women sending me the most tragic, terrible text messages and phoning me at all hours, saying "please help me, I am hiding in my basement, I didn't get on your planes in 2021 because my mother was dying, I couldn't leave at the time, but now they are after me.""

"Her fearlessness in the face of grave danger made her one of the few international journalists whom human rights activists and lawyers held in awe."

"As this collection of her writings shows, the reach of her journalism extended far beyond coverage of individual cataclysmic events. She frequently lifted the veil on more systematic inhumanity which did not attract as much international interest. Her tenacious investigations involved dogged correspondence and days sitting in court."

"Anna painted a haunting portrait of Putin's Russia, a country governed by an administration which bore many of the hallmarks of Stalin's; here was a land whose own secret services suppressed civil liberties and where fear stalked universities, newsrooms and every corridor in which democracy might have flourished."

"No, I don't. I care deeply about safe spaces for women. I know from personal experience there is a generation of women who fought very hard to create and protect safe spaces, that it matters. Where you have women who want to have a genuine debate about how better to protect them, it's a very welcome debate. But that has to start with the recognition that trans men are men, trans women are women and that they exist."

"I believe fundamentally in people's right to self-ID. [...] I think that crimes that are recorded should be recorded as that person wishes, having gone through that process, received support and self-identified. I think trans women are women, I think trans men are men, so I think they should be accommodated in a prison of their choosing."

"Mine is the patriotism of Orwell. Pride in a country that is forever changing, while also, ineffably, always the same. It is a love of this country as an open, tolerant and generous place. But that broad vision of who we are is increasingly disputed. Patriotism, a force for good, is turning into something smaller. Something more like ethno-nationalism, which struggles to accept that someone who looks like me, and has a faith like mine, can truly be English or British."

"AI and technology can be transformative to the whole of the law and order space.When I was in justice, my ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times.Similarly, in the world of policing, in particular, we’ve already been rolling out live facial recognition technology, but I think there’s big space here for being able to harness the power of AI and tech to get ahead of the criminals, frankly, which is what we’re trying to do."