Members Of The Parliament Of The United Kingdom

"Polluted rivers, filthy streets, bodies bedded down in doorways are no advertisement for a prosperous or caring society."

"The government of Athens, after the abolition of Monarchy, was truly democratic and, so much convulsed by those civil dissensions which are the inevitable consequences of that kind of government, that of all the Grecian states the Athenian may be the most strictly termed the seat of faction."

"Democrats are told that they are dreamers, and why? Because they assert that, if power be placed in the hands of the many, the many will exercise it for their own benefit Is it not a still wilder dream to suppose that the many will in future possess power, and use it not to secure what they consider to be their interests, but to serve those of others? Is it imagined that artisans in our great manufacturing towns are so satisfied with their present position that they will hurry to the polls to register their votes in favor of a system which divides us socially, politically, and economically, to classes, and places them at the bottom with hardly a possibility of using? Is the lot (of the agricultural labourer) so happy a one that he will humbly and cheerfully affix his cross to the name of the man who tells him that it can never be changed for the better? We know that artisans and agricultural labourers will approach the consideration of political and social problems with fresh and vigorous minds For the moment, we demand the equahsation of the franchise Our next demands will be electoral districts, cheap elections, payment of members, and abolition of hereditary legislators When our demands are complied with, we shall be thankful, but we shall not rest On the contrary, having forged an instrument for democratic legislation, we shall use it."

"I recall a phrase of that incorrigible cynic Labouchere, alluding to Mr. Gladstone's frequent appeals to a higher power, that he did not object to the old man always having a card up his sleeve, but he did object to his insinuating that the Almighty had placed it there."

"Labouchere was the incurable cynic who mocked, at everybody, including himself."

"All too often, the media pretends that feminism’s work is done. This week shows us what so many male politicians really think about consent, and sex, and the rights of a woman to withhold it, or attach conditions to it. There is a long way to go."

"It is [[George Galloway|[George] Galloway]] that is bankrupt of meaning: rape is when a woman does not consent. Because she is, for example, asleep and unconscious. Sexual consent is not football; you can’t buy a season ticket."

"Why do male politicians get this so wrong? Unfortunately, the answer is simple: because they believe what they are saying. Galloway, [[Todd Akin|[Todd] Akin]] and [[Craig Murray|[Craig] Murray]] represent the tip of an iceberg of resentment and base sexism."

"Or does the Prime Minister's advice to women simply consist of following her example and finding herself a wealthy husband?"

"What is this National Marriage Week? [...] I don't know why my colleagues are suddenly so fond of the word."

"[Primarolo was married to her second husband] [So] you could say I'm into the institution. When I was a single mother my son happily described our family as me, him, our dog and our cats."

"[On her earlier membership of the Campaign Group of left-wing MPs] I was hell-raising. I'm not saying I haven't made my mistakes but I don't regret anything: it's all been part of my learning curve."

"[On dealing with sexism from male MPs] One of our colleagues from the northern group had complained about Mo [Mowlam]'s swearing, and he was in the tea room when we got there. So she said: "Oh, it's all right, I won't swear today. But you need to understand the real problems I'm having with my period." I've never seen anybody run faster out of the tea rooms."

"We used to go in the chamber and sit next to each other when one of us spoke to support the speaking member, because the catcalls across the chamber were designed, as they always are, to undermine you and put you off."

"If I were a politician who said, I've never learnt anything and I don't look around me and see that circumstances change [...] then people would say, this person does not deserve to be a Member of Parliament. How can you be responsive to people and allow your own politics and ideas to develop if you don't take on change."

"It cannot be too well understood that our position in India has never been in any degree that of civilians bringing civilization to savage races. When we landed in India we found there a hoary civilization, which, during the progress of thousands of years, had fitted itself into the character and adjusted itself to the wants of highly intellectual races. The civilization was not perfunctory, but universal and all pervading - furnishing the country not only with political systems, but with social and domestic institutions of the most ramified description. The beneficent nature of these institutions as a whole may be judged from their effects on the character of the Hindu race. Perhaps there are no other people in the world who show so much in their character the advantageous effect of their own civilization. They are shrewd in business, acute in reasoning, thrifty, religious, sober, charitable, obedient to parents, reverential to old age, amiable, law-abiding, compassionate towards the helpless and patient under suffering."

"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 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."

"[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."

"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."

"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."

"Some of his best speeches combined much of the value of philosophical dissertations with all the charm of the most brilliant declamation. I know, indeed, none in modern times, except those of Burke, from which the student of politics can derive so many profound and valuable maxims of political wisdom, and none which are more useful to those who seek to master that art of condensed energy of expression in which he almost equalled Tacitus."

"O'Connell, comparing him to Pitt, said that he wanted the sustained dignity of that speaker, but that Pitt's speeches were always speedily forgotten, while Grattan was constantly saying things that were remembered. His speeches show no wit and no skill in the lighter forms of sarcasm; but he was almost unrivalled in crushing invective, in delineations of character, and in brief, keen arguments. In carrying on a train of sustained reasoning he was not so happy. Flood is said to have been his superior; and none of his speeches in this respect are comparable to that of Fox on the Westminster scrutiny."

"We are met on this melancholy occasion to celebrate the obsequies of the greatest man Ireland ever knew. The widowed land of his birth, in mourning over his remains, feels it is a nation's sorrow, and turns with the anxiety of a parent to alleviate the grief of the orphan he has left. The virtues of that great patriot shone brilliant, pure, unsullied, ardent, unremitting, glowing. Oh! I should exhaust the dictionary three times told, ere I could enumerate the virtues of Grattan."

"Let us unite to put down bigotry—it is the cause of our country that is at stake; let us rally round that cause, and let our motto be Grattan and Ireland!"

"The alteration of the Mutiny bill, which had been sent from hence, to a perpetual one, excited very general indignation; other impolitic acts were complained of. The spirit of the nation flamed higher than ever. Mr. Grattan not so much imbibing, as diffusing, a large portion of that spirit, and acting in concert with his friend, Lord Charlemont, moved a declaration of rights in favour of Ireland. The oration which he made on that occasion can never be forgotten by those who heard it. The language of Milton, or Shakespeare, can alone describe its effects."

"Among the orators, as among the statesmen of his age, Mr. Grattan occupies a place in the foremost rank; and it was the age of the Pitts, the Foxes, and the Sheridans. His eloquence was of a very high order, all but of the very highest, and it was eminently original. In the constant stream of a diction replete with epigram and point—a stream on which floated gracefully, because naturally, flowers of various hues,—was poured forth the closest reasoning, the most luminous statement, the most persuasive display of all the motives that could influence, and of all the details that could enlighten, his audience."

"When he rose curiosity was excited, and one might have heard a pin drop in that crowded house. It required indeed intense attention to catch the strange and long deep-fetched whisper in which he began; and I could see the incipient smile curling on Mr. Pitt's lips, at the brevity and antithesis of his sentences, his grotesque gesticulations, peculiar and almost foreign accent, and arch articulation and countenance. As he proceeded, however, the sneers of his opponents were softened into courtesy and attention, and, at length, settled in delight and admiration. Mr. Pitt beat time to the artificial but harmonious cadence of his periods, and Mr. Canning's countenance kindled at the brightness of a fancy, which in glitter fully equalled, in real warmth and power far exceeded, his own. Never was triumph more complete."

"Among the many eccentricities that distinguished Mr. Grattan as an orator, nothing was more remarkable than this apparent contradiction. He was artificial in manner, in utterance, in pronunciation, and in style; and yet he breathed such a spirit of benevolence, such a warmth of feeling, and such sincerity of principle, into all his speeches, that, like Mr. Fox himself, he won as much on the affections as on the understanding of his audience. From this period he became a favourite of the House: they not only admired his orations, but revered the man. They treated him, even in the decline of his powers, with a deference and tenderness that nothing but a long tenor of honourable conduct and many proofs of an amiable disposition can command or deserve."

"The eloquence of Grattan, in his best days, was in some respects perhaps the finest that has been heard in either country since the time of Chatham. Considered simply as a debater, he was certainly inferior to both Fox and Pitt, and perhaps to Sheridan; but he combined two of the very highest qualities of a great orator to a degree that was almost unexampled. No British orator except Chatham had an equal power of firing an educated audience with an intense enthusiasm, or of animating and inspiring a nation. No British orator except Burke had an equal power of sowing his speeches with profound aphorisms and associating transient questions with eternal truths. His thoughts naturally crystallised into epigrams; his arguments were condensed with such admirable force and clearness that they assumed almost the appearance of axioms; and they were often interspersed with sentences of concentrated poetic beauty, which flashed upon the audience with all the force of sudden inspiration, and which were long remembered and repeated."

"The elevation of his mind, the grandeur of his diction, the majesty of his declamation, the splendour of his imagery, and the soundness of his logic, displayed in turn the ascendancy of a genius whose sway was irresistible. He was fine and judicious in his panegyric; but his forte—that which seemed to conjure up and concentrate all his faculties—was the overwhelming, withering severity of his invective. It was like the torrent-lava, brilliant, inevitable, fatal. It required such qualifications to overcome the peculiarity of his appearance, and the disadvantages of his manner. Truly, indeed, might it be said of him as he said of Chatham, "he was very great, and very odd." For a time the eye dissented from the verdict of the mind; but at last, his genius carried all before it, and, as in the oracle of old, the contortions vanished as the inspiration became manifest."

"Burke told me that Grattan was a great man for a popular assembly, and now I believe it."

"I am convinced that it is their policy, as well as their duty, and I am sure it is their disposition, to maintain a perpetual connexion with the British Empire. To keep clear of every association with wild projectors for universal suffrage and annual Parliaments, and continue to cultivate those gracious dispositions in the Royal Breast which had been early manifested in their favour, and to accept of emancipation upon the terms that are substantial and honourable. Pursuing such a principle, and with the temper and conduct which they are manifesting, and which I am proud to contemplate, they must succeed. They desire a privilege to worship their God according to the best of their judgment, and they have a right to do so with impunity, and without the interference of the state. I shall go to England for your question, and should the attempt prove less fortunate to my health, I shall be more than repaid by the reflection that I make my last effort for the liberty of my country."

"He entered the Imperial Parliament in 1805, and continued, with the exception of the question upon the renewal of the war in 1815, a constant and most powerful coadjutor of the Whig party, refusing office when they came into power upon Mr. Pitt's death, but lending them a strenuous support upon all great questions, whether of English policy or of Irish, and showing himself most conspicuously above the mean and narrow spirit that would confine a statesman's exertions to the questions which interest one portion of the empire, or with which his own fame in former times may have been more peculiarly entwined."

"His speech was interwoven with expressions of loyalty to the King, and with sentiments of affection to and inseparable connection with Great Britain, of a disposition to give her every possible assistance, yet with a determination never to yield to the supremacy of the British Legislature."

"I am not afraid of the Right Honourable Member, I will meet him any where, or upon any ground, by night or by day.—I would stand poorly in my own estimation, and in my country's opinion, if I did not stand far above him.—I do not come here dressed in a rich wardrobe of words to delude the people—I am not one who has promised repeatedly to bring in a bill of rights, yet does not bring in that bill or permit any other person to do it—I am not one who threatened to impeach the Chief Justice of the King's Bench for acting under an English law, and afterwards shrunk from that business—I am not the author of the simple repeal—I am not one who, after saying the parliament was a parliament of prostitutes, endeavoured to make their voices subservient to my interest—I am not one who would come at midnight, and attempt by a vote of this House to stifle the voice of the people, which my egregious folly had raised against me—I am not the gentleman who subsists upon your accounts—I am not the mendicant patriot who was bought by my country for a sum of money, and then sold my country for prompt payment."

"First, at the Treasury and subsequently at International Trade and then at the Foreign Office, she became adept at self-promotion. Not that one would pick that up from her account. She rails at the “trivialisation” of politics but was known as much for her Instagram posts as her policy positions; she complains of her time as prime minister about “a growing culture of leaks” but was widely suspected by her colleagues of being the most prolific leaker of cabinet meetings, presumably because she hoped to win favourable press coverage."

"The speech of Mr. Grattan was, I understand, a display of the most beautiful eloquence perhaps ever heard, but it was seditious and inflammatory to a degree hardly credible. The theory and positions laid down both in his speech and that of Mr. Flood amounted to nothing less than war with England."

"Henry Grattan was one of the most eloquent orators of his time—the golden age of oratory in the English language."

"It is tempting to linger over some of the confusions and contradictions in the various pronouncements at the conference. We need to reduce immigration because immigrants place too great a pressure on public services and housing. But we also need women to give birth to more children. Presumably, these will not be children who will be born in hospitals, attend schools and live in houses. We need more British people to work so we need fewer immigrants. But we certainly should not be funding childcare support to help mothers enter the labour market. In fact, we are not that keen on mothers entering the labour market at all."

"The tone is pinched and narrow and disapproving but, above all, rather foreign (to use a phrase that might be understood by its contributors). It feels like an agenda for a different country or a different time. And that, of course, is what it is."

"The object, you said, was separation, so here the reform of parliament, you say, and Catholic emancipation are only pretexts; the object, you say, is separation, and here you exact unconditional submission—"YOU MUST SUBDUE BEFORE YOU REFORM." Indeed! Alas! you think so; but you forget you subdue by reforming; it is the best conquest you can obtain over your own people; but let me suppose you succeed, what is your success?—a military government, a perfect despotism, an hapless victory over the principles of a mild government and a mild constitution! a Union! but what may be the ultimate consequence of such a victory? A separation!"

"What is your plan? There are but two measures in the country, reform or force. We have offered you the former; you seem inclined to the latter. Let us consider it: "To subdue, to coerce, to establish unqualified submission;" an arduous, a precarious undertaking! Have you well weighed all its consequences? Is there not much of passion in your judgment? Have you not lost your temper a little in the contest? I am sure you have shown this night symptoms of irritation—a certain impatience of the complaints of the people. So it was in the American business. Nothing less in that contest than their unconditional submission. Alas! what was the consequence? As far as you have tried your experiment here, it has failed; the report shows you it has failed. It has increased the evil it would restrain; it has propagated the principle it would punish; but if repeated and invigorated you think it will have more success; I apprehend not. Do not you perceive, that instead of strengthening monarchy by constitutional principles, you are attempting to give it force by despotic ones? That you are giving the new principle the advantage of success abroad and of suffering at home, and that you are losing the people, while you think you are strengthening the throne; that you have made a false alliance with unnatural principles, and instead of identifying with the people, you identify with abuses?"

"The thing he proposes to buy, is what cannot be sold—LIBERTY! For it, he has nothing to give: every thing of value which you possess, you obtained under a free constitution; part with it, and you must be not only a slave but an idiot."

"I conceive the continuance of Lord Fitzwilliam as necessary for the prosperity of this kingdom. His firm integrity is formed to correct; his mild manners to reconcile, and his private example to discountenance a progress of vulgar and rapid pollution; if he is to retire, I condole with my country. For myself, the pangs on that occasion I should feel, on rendering up my small portion of ministerial breath, would be little, were it not for the gloomy prospects afforded by those dreadful guardians which are likely to succeed. I tremble at the return to power of your old task-masters: that combination which galled the country with its tyranny, insulted her by its manners, exhausted her by its rapacity, and slandered her by its malice. Should such a combination, once inflamed, as it must be now by the favour of the British court, and by the reprobation of the Irish people, return to power, I have no hesitation to say that they will extinguish Ireland, or Ireland must remove them."

"Try this plan. Reform the Parliament; let the King identify with his people; there is his strength; let him share with them, or rather let them share with him, the blessings of the constitution; as they have given him the powers of government, let him restore to them the rights of self-legislation; without that they have no liberty, and without full and free representation in the Commons they have not that; they have the name indeed, but they have not the substance."

"The Parliament of Ireland—of that assembly I have a parental recollection. I sate by her cradle, I followed her hearse. In fourteen years she acquired for Ireland what you did not acquire for England in a century—freedom of trade, independency of the legislature, independency of the judges, restoration of the final judicature, repeal of a perpetual mutiny bill, habeas corpus act, nullum tempus act—a great work! You will exceed it, and I shall rejoice. I call my countrymen to witness, if in that business I compromised the claims of my country, or temporised with the power of England; but there was one thing which baffled the effort of the patriot, and defeated the wisdom of the senate, it was the folly of the theologian."

"We have a monarchy, the best form of government for rational and durable liberty."