Background Image

...

There Is No Doubt That The Time To Act Is Now. It Is Now That Timely Action Can Avert Disaster. It Is Now That With Foresight And Will Such Action Can Be Taken Without Disturbing The Essence Of Our Way Of Life, By Adjusting Behaviour Not Altering It Entirely.

-Tony Blair

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

There Is No Doubt

Tony Blair

...

There Is No Doubt That The Time To Act Is Now. It Is Now That Timely Action Can Avert Disaster. It Is Now That With Foresight And Will Such Action Can Be Taken Without Disturbing The Essence Of Our Way Of Life, By Adjusting Behaviour Not Altering It Entirely.

Views: 35380

Topic

More From Tony Blair

As The World Transforms, Moves Closer Together, Jobs Are Displaced, And The World Of Work Completely Changes The Way We Live, The Way We Think. As That Revolution Goes On Around Us, It Is Going To Pose Political Challenges Of Which Immigration Is One Very Obvious One, Which Are Going To Be Extremely Difficult To Deal With. But It's Like Free Trade. You Know, In The End, If We Go Protectionist, We'll Make A Mistake.

Education Is The Best Economic Policy There Is.

Economic Policy

I Shall Not Rest Until, Once Again, The Destinies Of Our People And Our Party Are Joined Together Again In Victory At The Next General Election Labour In Its Rightful Place In Government Again.

Values Unrelated To Modern Reality Are Not Just Electorally Hopeless, The Values Themselves Become Devalued. They Have No Purchase On The Real World.

The Purpose Of Terrorism Lies Not Just In The Violent Act Itself. It Is In Producing Terror. It Sets Out To Inflame, To Divide, To Produce Consequences Which They Then Use To Justify Further Terror.

We Expected, I Expected To Find Actual Usable, Chemical Or Biological Weapons After We Entered Iraq.

The Spanish Pm Rang Me To Say: 'i Have The Support Of Only 4 Per Cent Of The People.' I Said, 'crikey, That's Even Less Than Think Elvis Presley Is Still Alive.'

If We Are Going To Carry On Growing, And We Will, Because No Country Is Going To Forfeit Its Right To Economic Growth, We Have To Find A Way Of Doing It Sustainably.

I Think The Single Most Important Political Distinction Today Is Actually Between Open-minded Versus Closed-minded, And That's Why I Think This Crosses The Boundaries Of Traditional - Center-right And Center-left Have Much More In Common With Each Other Right Now Than The Right Does With The Center-right, And The Left Does With The Center-left.

Human Progress Has Never Been Shaped By Commentators, Complainers Or Cynics.

A Lot Of The Politics That Is Going On Left And Right At The Moment Is More About A Protest, Which We Should Respond To. It's Not Often About A Policy. And That's Why What You Get Is This Strange Coalition Of Different Views Of What The Future Should Be, Coming Together In Alliance To Protest Against The Status Quo.

I Still Think The World Is Better Off And Safer Without Saddam Hussein.

The Full Horror Of What Has Happened In The United States Earlier Today Is Now Becoming Clearer. It Is Hard Even To Contemplate The Utter Carnage And Terror Which Has Engulfed So Many Innocent People. We've Offered President Bush And The American People Our Solidarity, Our Profound Sympathy, And Our Prayers. But It Is Plain That Citizens Of Many Countries Round The World, Including Britain, Will Have Been Caught Up In This Terror.

In This Day And Age If You've Got The Technology Then It's Vital To Use That Technology To Track People Down. The Number On The Database Should Be The Maximum Number You Can Get.

Self-interest And Mutual Interest Are Inextricably Linked. National Interests Can Best Be Advanced Through Collective Action, ... Calculate Not Just The Human Misery Of The Poor Themselves. Calculate Our Loss: The Aid, The Lost Opportunity To Trade, The Short-term Consequences Of The Multiple Conflicts; The Long-term Consequences On The Attitude To The Wealthy World Of Injustice And Abject Deprivation Amongst The Poor.

If You Don't See The Internet As An Opportunity, It Will Become A Threat. In Two Or Three Year's Time, The Internet Will Become As Commonplace In The Office As The Telephone.

You Choose Your Own Reality And You - Social Media Then Amplifies Those Conspiracy Theories. So That's Why I Say Social Media Is Itself A Revolutionary Phenomenon.

This Is Not A Battle Between The United States Of America And Terrorism, But Between The Free And Democratic World And Terrorism.

When I Started Out As Prime Minister I Wanted To Please All The People All The Time. By The End I Was Wondering If I Pleased Any Of The People Any Of The Time.

I Think The People Like Myself Who Are In The Center Ground Of Politics And Who Think That Center Left And Center Right Can Cooperate And Work Together. Who Don't Like This Sort Of Insurgent Populism Because We Think It's Not Really Going To Deliver For The People, I Think There's A Big Responsibility On Us In The Center To Get Our Act Together. And To Work Out Radical But Serious Solutions To The Problems People Face.

The Understanding Which Has Driven New Labour's Reform Is To Put The Individual Citizen - The Patient, The Parent, The Pupil, The Law Abiding Citizen - At The Centre Of Each Public Service, With The Service Reformed To Meet Their Individual Requirements

I Don't Think It's Surprising We Will Have To Look For Them. I'm Confident That When The Iraq Survey Group Has Done Its Work We Will Find What's Happened To Those Weapons Because He Had Them.

You Get These Insurgent Movements Of Populism, Left And Right. An Insurgent Movement Of Populism Took My Political Party Over In The Uk For Example.

I Feel Like Everyone Else In This Country Today. I Am Utterly Devastated.

We In A Sense Went For The Bernie Sanders Model Ok? Now We're Also In Turmoil As A Result Of This Result.

As So Often Before, On The Courage And Determination Of British Men And Women, Serving Our Country, The Fate Of Many Nations Rests.

I Think, There Is A Possibility - I Would Say It's More Than That - That We Will Come To A View Of Foreign Policy Going Forward That Learns From The Past But Doesn't Get Captured By It.

Of Particular Importance To Us Is The Recognition... That What We Want Is A Europe Of Nations, Not A Federal Super-state.

The Biological Agents We Believe Iraq Can Produce Include Anthrax, Botulinum, Toxin, Aflatoxin And Ricin. All Eventually Result In Excruciatingly Painful Death.

There Is Good Evidence That Last Year's European Heat Wave Was Influenced By Global Warming. It Resulted In 26,000 Premature Deaths And Cost $13.5bn.

I Think It Is Having Answers And Not Simply Anger, And Providing Solutions That People Believe Will Change Their Lives In A Radical Way But Do It In A Way That's Sensible.

I Want To See A Publicly-owned Railway, Publicly Accountable.

You Know, The Media And Politicians Are Always Gonna Be In A Bit Of Tension With One Another And Probably Most Of The Time That's Healthy And Indeed Even Creative. But It's Where - It's Really When News Organisations Are Used As Kind Of Instruments Of Politics That It Gets Tricky.

Your Loss We Count As Our Loss. Your Struggle We Take As Our Struggle.

It [the Intelligence Service] Concludes That Iraq Has Chemical And Biological Weapons, That Saddam Has Continued To Produce Them, That He Has Existing And Active Military Plans For The Use Of Chemical And Biological Weapons, Which Could Be Activated Within 45 Minutes, Including Against His Own Shia Population; And That He Is Actively Trying To Acquire Nuclear Weapons Capability.

Intelligence Services

There Should Not Be A Party Within A Party.

But The World Is Ever More Interdependent. Stock Markets And Economies Rise And Fall Together. Confidence Is The Key To Prosperity. Insecurity Spreads Like Contagion. So People Crave Stability And Order.

Sometimes People Say To Me, 'well, What Was The Difference Between Kosovo, Which Was A Successful Intervention, And Iraq And Afghanistan That Have Been So Difficult?' And The Answer Is Perfectly Simple. In Kosovo, You Have, After The Removal Of The Loss Of Its Regime, You Had A Process Of Political And Economic Reconstruction That Took Its Part Without The Intervention Of Terrorism. If You Had The Intervention Of Terrorism, By The Way, It Would Have Been Extremely Difficult There - But We Didn't.

I May Find Saddam Hussein's Regime Abhorrent - Any Normal Person Would - But The Survival Of It Is In His Hands.

Bill Clinton Has Been A True Leader Of The Western World. He Has Been A Friend And A Counsel To Me And Other Leaders Right Around The World.

Repressive States Are Developing Weapons That Could Cause Destruction On A Massive Scale.

The Trouble Is Nowadays That Parts Of The Media Operate In A Very Partisan Way. There's No Point In Complaining About It, That's The Way It Is. But Let's Be Clear, A Lot Of It Is Driven By The Views Of A Pretty Small Number Of People, Rather Than A Normal Standard Of Journalism.

Examine The Legacy That We Inherited And What We Did. We Had Boom-and-bust Economics And A Doubled National Debt.

I Want My Son To Grow Up In A Place Where The People Are More Powerful Than The Government And Not The Other Way Around.

We Have A Situation Where We Are Rich Really As A World Overall, And Yet We Have The Capacity To Destroy Ourselves, Either Through Nuclear Weapons Or Through Environmental Degradation, And We Allow The Life Chances Of Hundreds Of Millions Of People To Be Destroyed Because We Haven't Found The Will To Tackle It

The Donald Trump Phenomenon In The U.s. Is Mirrored Completely By The Brexit Phenomenon In The U.k. It's Very Similar Forces. And What Is Interesting To Me Is There Are Two Different Groups That Come Together, Who Don't Really Agree With Each Other, But Have Come Together In Unity Against, If You Like, What Is Perceived As The Status Quo, Or - And Certainly What Is A More Center-right Or Center-left Type Of Politics.

This Mass Terrorism Is The New Evil In Our World Today

King Fahd Was A Man Of Great Vision And Leadership Who Inspired His Countrymen For A Quarter Of A Century As King. He Led Saudi Arabia Through A Period Of Unparalleled Progress And Development.

There Is Nothing Like Waking Up At Six In The Morning And Changing A Baby's Nappy To Bring You Face To Face With Life's Reality.

Yes, I Feel I've Got Something To Say. If People Want To Listen, That's Great, And If They Don't, That's Their Choice.

I Also, As I Think Most People Do, Have A Healthy Instinct That If We Upset The Balance Of Nature, We Are In All Probability Going To Suffer A Reaction. With World Growth, And Population As It Is, This Reaction Must Increase.

The Evidence About Saddam Having Actual Biological And Chemical Weapons, As Opposed To The Capability To Develop Them, Has Turned Out To Be Wrong. I Acknowledge That And Accept It. I Simply Point Out, Such Evidence Was Agreed By The Whole International Community, Not Least Because Saddam Had Used Such Weapons Against His Own People And Neighbouring Countries.

There Are Solutions That Are Proper, But They Require The Painstaking And Difficult Work Of Building Alliances And Also Being Prepared To Analyze The Problem Realistically. And Exactly The Same Thing Is Going On My Side Of The Atlantic As Is Going On Your Side Of The Atlantic.

I Haven't Come To The Conclusion That Centrist Politics Is Wrong Or Dead. On The Contrary. I Think It's Very Much Alive - But It Needs To Be Given A Renewal, A Revival, And A Muscularity Which It Presently Lacks.

Sometimes It Is Better To Lose And Do The Right Thing Than To Win And Do The Wrong Thing.

Personally, I Have Already Turned Down The Downing St Thermostat By 1 Degree

What People Should Understand Is That I Adore The Labour Party.

What I Don't Know Is Whether There Is A Way Politically That You Can Beat Away These, Some Of These Populist Movements Because In The End I Don't Think They Really Do Provide Answers. They Ride The Anger. But They Don't Really Have The Answers. Or Whether This Is An Experiment We're Just Going To Have To Go Through First.

We've Seen The Reality Of Saddam's Regime: His Thugs Prepared To Kill Their Own People, The Parading Of Prisoners Of War And Now The Release Of Those Pictures Of Executed British Soldiers.

My Course Has Never Been About Triangulation, And Neither, Really, Is Bill Clinton's. It's Not - It's About Applying Your Values To The Future In A Practical And Unblinking Way, And That Is An Ideological View That Is Every Bit As Strong As Views From The Left Or From The Right.

I Think All Of Our Experience With Iraqi President Saddam Hussein Teaches Us That Diplomacy Has Very Little Chance Of Working Unless It Is Clear To Him That If Diplomacy Does Not Work, That The Threatened Reality Of Force Is There.

If I'd Proposed Solving The Pension Problem By Compulsory Euthanasia For Every Fifth Pensioner I'd Have Got Less Trouble For It.

It Is Not An Arrogant Government That Chooses Priorities, It's An Irresponsible Government That Fails To Choose.

I've Never Ruled Out The Possibility Of Going Back Into Public Service.

I Cannot Think Of Any Circumstances In Which A Government Can Go To War Without The Support Of Parliament.

I Think It's Important For People Like Me To Evaluate And Reevaluate.

The British People Are The Boss.

In No Relationship At The Top Of Any Walk Of Life Is It Always Easy, Least Of All In Politics Which Matters So Much And Which Is Conducted In Such A Piercing Spotlight.

The Great Advantage Of The Lib Dems Is Precisely That No-one Knows What They Stand For.

I Didn't Come Into Politics To Change The Labour Party. I Came Into Politics To Change The Country.

I Am A Pretty Straight Sort Of Guy.

I Abhor Saddam's Regime, But The Basis Has To Be Disarmament.

What We Want To See Is The Development Of Human Rights And Greater Democracy, Not Just Because It Is Our System But Because We Think That's The Best Way That Economic And Political Development Go Hand In Hand.

If You're Living In A Community That's Become Fragmented And Left Behind, There's Not Proper Investment In It And So On, In The End, The Answer Is To Make Sure That We Go And We Help Those Communities, We Educate The People Properly, We Build The Necessary Infrastructure Of Support For People.

Anywhere, Anytime Ordinary People Are Given The Chance To Choose, The Choice Is The Same: Freedom, Not Tyranny; Democracy, Not Dictatorship; The Rule Of Law, Not The Rule Of The Secret Police.

My Dad Was A Militant Atheist, Or Is A Militant Atheist. My Mum Was Sort Of Bought Up In A Religious Family Because She Was A Protestant From Ireland But Wasn't Especially Religious.

If What The Science Tells Us About Climate Change Is Correct, Then Unabated It Will Result In Catastrophic Consequences For Our World.

They Could Have Been Removed. They Could Have Been Hidden. They Could Have Been Destroyed.

Could Have Been

One Of The Things That I've Been Doing Over The Past Few Years Is Reevaluating My Own Powers Of Political Analysis.

Obviously It Is Right That The Afghans Take Responsibility For Their Own Future In The End, But They Need To Know And Feel That We Are There As Partners For Them If They Are Prepared To Make The Necessary Changes. But We Should Be In No Doubt As To Why We Are In Afghanistan. We Ended Up There Because Terrorism Hatched There Erupted Thousands Of Miles Away In New York On Sept. 11.

The Only Society That Works Today Is Also One Founded On Mutual Respect, On A Recognition That We Have A Responsibility Collectively And Individually, To Help Each Other On The Basis Of Each Other's Equal Worth. A Selfish Society Is A Contradiction In Terms.

I Always Say, When They Ask Me About American Politics, Is For You Guys To Decide Who You Elect.

American Politics

We Expected, I Expected To Find Actual Usable, Chemical Or Biological Weapons After We Entered Iraq. But I Have To Accept, As The Months Have Passed, It Seems Increasingly Clear That At The Time Of Invasion, Saddam Did Not Have Stockpiles Of Chemical Or Biological Weapons Ready To Deploy.

In Downing Street They Called Me 'boss'. Civil Servants Would Always Call Me 'prime Minister'.

If You're Interested In Politics And You're Not Following It, Then It's A Little Bizarre.

Once His Wife Goes To Sleep It Takes A Minor Nuclear Explosion To Wake Her.

The Socialism Of Centralised State Control Of Industry And Production, Is Dead. It Misunderstood The Nature And Development Of A Modern Market Economy. It Failed To Recognise That The State And Public Sector Can Become A Vested Interest Capable Of Oppression As Much As The Vested Interests Of Wealth And Capital. It Was Based On A False View Of Class That Became Too Rigid To Explain Or Illuminate The Nature Of Class Division Today.

There's A Deep Affection And Respect For The Queen And The Monarchy In The U.k. But Diana Was An Extraordinary, Iconic Figure And Her Death Sparked A Fierce Reaction, Part Grief And Part Anger At Her Being Taken Away. It Was Very Fraught.

Look, I Am Very Competitive.

As For Those That Carried Out These Attacks There Are No Adequate Words Of Condemnation. Their Barbarism Will Stand As Their Shame For All Eternity.

My View Is That We're Entering Into A Situation Of Enormous Instability, Insecurity, Fragility.

My View Always Is That We Should Learn The Lessons, Both Of The Last Sort Of 50 Years Of Policy-making And It Is Possible To Get To A Foreign Policy That Is Engaged And Active Without Going Back To Where We Were In The Post-9/11 World.

I Think I Made The Wrong Career Choice

People Always Think American Politics Is Very Different, But Usually It Is A Predictor Of What Happens In The Politics Elsewhere.

The Art Of Leadership Is Saying No, Not Saying Yes. It Is Very Easy To Say Yes.

The Moment You Stigmatize A Whole Group Of People - For Example, Muslims - Then, Obviously, You Make The Decent, Law-abiding Muslims Feel As If They're Under Threat In Some Way Or That Their Legitimacy, As Members Or Citizens Of Society, Is Brought Into Question.

But In Terms Of How People Live Together, How We Minimize The Prospects Of Conflict And Maximize The Prospects Of Peace, The Place Of Religion In Our Society Today Is Essential.

In Retrospect, The Millennium Marked Only A Moment In Time. It Was The Events Of September 11 That Marked A Turning Point In History, Where We Confront The Dangers Of The Future And Assess The Choices Facing Humankind.

We, Therefore, Here In Britain Stand Shoulder To Shoulder With Our American Friends In This Hour Of Tragedy, And We, Like Them, Will Not Rest Until This Evil Is Driven From Our World.

I Don't Concede It At All That The Intelligence At The Time Was Wrong.

There Are Millions Of Young Children Being Educated To A Very Narrow-minded View Of Religion. And It's Out Of That Education Of Large Numbers Of Young People That You Then Get This Extremism.

This Mass Terrorism Is The New Evil In Our World Today. It Is Perpetrated By Fanatics Who Are Utterly Indifferent To The Sanctity Of Human Life, And We The Democracies Of This World Are Going To Have To Come Together And Fight It Together.

The Emphasis Placed By More And More Companies On Corporate Social Responsibility, Symbolises The Recognition That Prosperity Is Best Achieved In An Inclusive Society.

Sometimes And In Particular Dealing With A Dictator, The Only Chance Of Peace Is A Readiness For War.

There Are Unquestionably Links Between Al-qaida And Iraq.

Sovereignty Rests With Me As An English Mp And That's The Way It Will Stay.

The Free Enterprise System Has Not Failed; The Financial System Has Failed.

Free Enterprise

The Threat Today Is Not That Of The 1930s. It's Not Big Powers Going To War With Each Other. The Ravages Which Fundamentalist Political Ideology Inflicted On The 20th Century Are Memories. The Cold War Is Over. Europe Is At Peace, If Not Always Diplomatically.

I Do Believe That If You Reach A Just And Fair Settlement Between The Israelis And The Palestinians It Will Have A Massive Influence On Countering Extremism. Which Is Not To Say That The Israel-palestinian Situation Is The Source Of The Problem, But It Is Very Potent Fuel.

A Simple Way To Take Measure Of A Country Is To Look At How Many Want In.. And How Many Want Out.

You've Got Problems In Central Asia. And You've Got Problems Within Our Own Communities Back Home. So If We End Up Saying, Look, This Has Nothing To Do With Islam Or It's Got No Connection With That Broader Question, Then We Look, Frankly, As If We're In Denial About The Problem. And The Interesting Thing In The Middle East Is That They Have Absolutely No Problem There In Identifying That As Islamist Extremism And Calling It That.

We Are Going To Expand Enormously -- Our Economy, Our Consumption, Over The Years To Come ... But The Consequences Of That On Emissions Are Going To Be Severe Unless We Change Direction.

What Is Obviously Unfair Is That The Half Of The Population That Doesn't Go To University That's Often On Lower Incomes Pays More Taxes In Order To Send Other People To University, Without Them, You Know, Contributing.

I Have Absolutely No Doubt At All That We Will Find Evidence Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction Programmes.

Mass Destruction

Some May Belittle Politics, But We Know - Who Are Engaged In It - That It Is Where People Stand Tall. And, Although I Know It Has Its Many Harsh Contentions, It Is Still The Arena That Sets The Heart Beating A Little Faster. And If It Is, On Occasions, The Place Of Low Skulduggery, It Is More Often The Place For The Pursuit Of Noble Causes.

If We Are Wrong, We Will Have Destroyed A Threat That, At Its Least Is Responsible For Inhuman Carnage And Suffering. That Is Something I Am Confident History Will Forgive.

I Can Only Go One Way. I've Not Got A Reverse Gear.

There Is No Way You're Going To Have An Event Like 9/11 And Expect Things To Remain The Same. They Killed 3,000 People In New York On That Day, And If They Could Have They Would've Killed 300,000.

No One Is To Blame For The Breakdown In Trust Between Politics, Media And The Public.

The Best Philanthropy Is Not Just About Giving Money But Giving Leadership. The Best Philanthropists Bring The Gifts That Made Them Successful-the Drive, The Determination, The Refusal To Accept That Something Can't Be Done If It Needs To Be Into Their Philanthropy.

Ah Yes, Liberal Democrats Unified As Ever In Opportunism And In Error.

I Say To The Taliban: Surrender The Terrorists; Or Surrender Power. It's Your Choice.

I Still Think There Is A Residual Desire Amongst The Majority Of The Public To Be Given A Proper Solution.

Real Progress Cannot Be Measured By Money Alone. We Must Ensure That Economic Growth Contributes To Our Quality Of Life, Rather Than Degrading It

I'm A Labour Politician, But, You Know, I Can See Decent Tories With Good Ideas.

I Will Do What It Takes To Help Ed Miliband Win General Election.

People Divide Into Groups Where They Talk To Each Other, But Don't Talk Across The Divide. And Yet Most Of The Challenges We Face In The World Today Are Challenges That Are To Do With Trade, With Technology, With How You Make Sure That People Are Properly Educated, Reform Your Health Care System.

The Fear Of Missing Out Means That Today’s Media, More Than Ever Before, Hunts In A Pack. In These Modes It Is Like A Feral Beast, Just Tearing People And Reputations To Bits. But No-one Dares Miss Out.

The Iraqi Elections Struck A Blow To The Heart Of Global Terrorism.

If We Want To Contrast What We Have Done In The Past Few Years On Delivery With What The Right Hon. And Learned Gentleman Delivered, Let Us Remember The Interest Rates At 10 Per Cent. To 15 Per Cent., The 1.5 Million Fewer People In Work, The Boom And The Bust And The Borrowing At 8 Per Cent.

I Don't Like It, To Be Honest, When Politicians Make A Big Thing Of Their Religious Beliefs, So I Don't Make A Big Thing Of It.

There Is No Meeting Of Minds, No Point Of Understanding With Such Terror. Just A Choice: Defeat It Or Be Defeated By It. And Defeat It We Must.

Nato's Got A Vital Role To Play. It's Very Important That We Protect Nato.

And Just As The Terrorist Seeks To Divide Humanity In Hate, So We Have To Unify It Around An Idea. And That Idea Is Liberty.

The Iraq Survey Group Has Already Found Massive Evidence Of A Huge System Of Clandestine Laboratories.

If People In The End Think That You Can't Do Something In A Way Which Is Acceptable Then It Won't Fly. The Only Way You Get Anything Like This Done Is If People Think, 'i Understand Why It Is Being Done.'

But I Am An Optimist About Britain; And The Difference Between An Optimist And A Pessimist Is Not That The Optimist Believes The World Is Wonderful And The Pessimist Believes It's Beset By Challenges; The Difference Is The Pessimist Believes We Will Be Defeated By Them; The Optimist Thinks The Challenges Can Be Overcome.

What Is True About (ex-iraq Survey Group Head) David Kay's Evidence, And This Is Something I Have To Accept, And Is One Of The Reasons Why I Think We Now Need A New Inquiry - It Is True David Kay Is Saying We Have Not Found Large Stockpiles Of Actual Weapons.

If You Are Trying To Take A Difficult Decision And You're Weighing Up The Pros And Cons, You Have Frank Conversations. Everybody Knows This In Their Walk Of Life.

Conflict Is Not Inevitable, But Disarmament Is... Everyone Now Accepts That If There Is A Default By Saddam The International Community Must Act To Enforce Its Will.

The First Big Choice: A Government With The Strength To Deliver Stability, Or A Government That Takes The Country Back To Boom And Bust.

When My Parents Were Growing Up The World's Population Was Under Three Billion. During My Children's Lifetime, It Is Likely To Exceed Nine Billion. You Don't Need To Be An Expert To Realise That Sustainable Development Is Going To Become The Greatest Challenge We Face This Century

We Are Asked Now Seriously To Accept That In The Last Few Years-contrary To All History, Contrary To All Intelligence-saddam Decided Unilaterally To Destroy Those Weapons. I Say That Such A Claim Is Palpably Absurd.

What We Also Know Is We Haven't Found Them [weapons Of Mass Destruction] In Iraq - Now Let The Survey Group Complete Its Work And Give Us The Report... They Will Not Report That There Was No Threat From Saddam, I Don't Believe.

Mass Destruction

I'm An Avowed Centrist, And I Believe That - Centrism Is Often - It's Almost The Wrong Word To Use, Because It's Often Seen As Sort Of Splitting The Difference Between Right And Left.

We Promise That The Events Of 1991 Will Not Happen Again. We Have Pledged To Remove Saddam. And We Will Deliver.

I Think The Center Ground Have Got To Become The People Of Change Again And Not The Guardians Of The Status Quo. And That Is The Weakness It Comes To In Our Campaign. You Can See It In Your Politics, You Can See It Everywhere.

The Money From Iraqi Oil Will Be Yours - It Will No Longer Be Used By Saddam Hussein For His Own Benefit.

I Think What Happened With 9/11 Is That People Sort Of Felt That It Came From Nowhere. Whereas I Think Now We Understand The Roots Are Very Deep. I Say It's Like Revolutionary Communism, Something That Is Going To Have To Be Knocked Out Over A Very Long Period Of Time. This Strain Of Extremism Continues To Be Very Strong, Whether It's In Afghanistan, Or Somalia Or Yemen, Or Any Of These Places.

Ever So Often In The History Of Human Endeavour, There Comes A Breakthrough That Takes Humankind Across A Frontier Into A New Era. ... Today's Announcement Is Such A Breakthrough, A Breakthrough That Opens The Way For Massive Advancement In The Treatment Of Cancer And Hereditary Diseases. And That Is Only The Beginning.

We Can Debate This Or That Aspect Of Climate Change, But The Reality Is That Most People Now Accept Our Climate Is Indeed Subject To Change As A Result Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

Immigration Was Probably The Driving Thing Behind Brexit.

It's Not A Burning Ambition For Me To Make Sure That David Beckham Earns Less Money.

Lord Cranborne Told The Leader Of The Opposition To 'back Me Or Sack Me' - He Succeeded In Doing Both.

What We Have Got To Do Now Is Use This Event, The Resignation Of The Whole Commission, To Drive Through Root And Branch Reform.

Our Task Is Not To Fight Old Battles, But To Show That There Is A Third Way, A Way Of Marrying Together An Open Competitive Society And Successful Economy With A Just And Decent Society.

There Have Been The Most Terrible, Shocking Events Taking Place In The United States Of America Within The Last Hour Or So... I Am Afraid We Can Only Imagine The Terror And The Carnage There And The Many, Many Innocent People Who Will Have Lost Their Lives... It Is Perpetrated By Fanatics Who Are Utterly Indifferent To The Sanctity Of Human Life And We, The Democracies Of This World, Are Going To Have To Come Together To Fight It Together And Eradicate This Evil Completely From Our World.

Saddam Hussein's Regime Is Despicable, He Is Developing Weapons Of Mass Destruction, And We Cannot Leave Him Doing So Unchecked. He Is A Threat To His Own People And To The Region And, If Allowed To Develop These Weapons, A Threat To Us Also.

Mass Destruction

A Challenge So Far-reaching In Its Impact And Irreversible In Its Destructive Power, That It Alters Radically Human Existence... There Is No Doubt That The Time To Act Is Now.

I Mean, I Went To A Church School When I Was Younger And Imbibed A Certain Amount Of Religion Then But It Was Really In University That I Got Interested In Religion And Politics At The Same Time. I Don't Think As If It Were One Moment Of Conversion But My Spiritual Journey Really Began Then.

Our Determination To Defend Our Values And Way Of Life Is Greater Than Their (terrorists) Determination To Cause Death And Destruction To Innocent People In A Desire To Impose Extremism Upon The World.

I Had No Intention Of Returning Into The British Political Debate, Really At All, Even Though I've Obviously Got Very Strong Views On It, Until Brexit Happened, Because I Think Brexit Is A Destiny-changing Decision For My Country.

We Have Taken A Situation In The U.k. Because Of Concerns, For Example, Over Immigration And Other Things, So Britain Now Is On A Path Out Of Europe.

If There Is One Thing Britain Should Learn From The Last 50 Years, It Is This: Europe Can Only Get More Important For Us.

The Big Issue Of Our Time Is Trying To Deal With Extremism Based On A Perversion Of Religion And How You Get Peaceful Coexistence Between People Of Different Faiths And Cultures.

Our Aim Is Not Just An Educated Nation But An Intelligent One

There Are Literally Thousands Of Sites. As I Was Told In Iraq, Information Is Coming In The Entire Time, But It Is Only Now That The Iraq Survey Group Has Been Put Together That A Dedicated Team Of People, Which Includes Former Un Inspectors, Scientists And Experts, Will Be Able To Go In And Do The Job Properly.

I Think Social Media Is A Revolutionary Phenomenon All In Itself.

But As I Always Say To People I'm Essentially A Public Service Person.

As I Have Said Throughout, I Have No Doubt That They Will Find The Clearest Possible Evidence Of Saddam's Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

Mass Destruction

I Had Discovered Long Ago The First Lesson Of Political Courage: To Think Anew. I Had Then Learned The Second: To Be Prepared To Lead And To Decide. I Was Now Studying The Third: How To Take The Calculated Risk. I Was Going To Alienate Some People, Like It Or Not. The Moment You Decide, You Divide.

Surely We Have The Wit And Will To Develop Economically Without Despoiling The Very Environment We Depend Upon

One Thing I'm Not Sure Of - And It's A Very Open Question - Is Whether The Type Of Politics That I Represent Really Has Had Its Day Or Not. Now I Obviously Believe Passionately It Hasn't, That It's Still The Answer And Not The Problem, And, You Know, The Evidence Points Both Ways.

The First Rule In Politics Is That There Are No Rules, At Least Not In The Sense Of Inevitable Defeats Or Inevitable Victories. If You Have The Right Policy And The Right Strategy, You Always Have A Chance Of Winning. Without Them, You Can Lose No Matter How Certain The Victory Seems.

Whatever The Dangers Of The Action We Take, The Dangers Of Inaction Are Far, Far Greater.

Labour Is The Party Of Law And Order In Britain Today. Tough On Crime, Tough On The Causes Of Crime.

It's Not That Tens Of Millions Of People All Want To Be Violent. But They Share The Worldview That Then, At Its Extreme, Gives Rise To The Violence. And In My View, This Is Why This Is Such A Global Problem.

There Will Be No Peace In Our World Without An Understanding Of The Place Of Religion Within It.

If You've Got Communities That Feel They've Been Left Behind, If You've Got - As You Do In Britain At The Moment, You Have Communities That Believe They're Being Changed By Immigration, That They Don't Have Job Opportunities, And That They're Disregarded And That They Don't - They've Got No Stake In A Future Which Embraces Globalization, You've Got To Address That Issue.

What I Will Say To People Is What You Require Are Rules And Not Prejudices.

And The Problem Is, I Can Apologise For The Information That Turned Out To Be Wrong, But I Can't, Sincerely At Least, Apologise For Removing Saddam.

Deportation Is A Decision Taken By The Home Secretary Under Statute, The New Grounds Will Include Fostering Hatred, Advocating Violence To Further A Person's Beliefs, Or Justifying Or Validating Such Violence.

Now You May Do It Badly, You May Do It Well, Some People Like You, Some People Hate You, All The Rest Of It - But You Have Got A Real Motivating Life Purpose. [on Being Prime Minister

There's A Great Frustration With The System. There's A Lot Of Anger Out There. But In The End, You Need Answers And Not Just Anger. But Anyway, Let Me Not Trespass Too Much Into Your Politics. I've Got Enough Problems In My Own Politics.

I Have Never Pretended To Be A Great House Of Commons Man, But I Pay The House The Greatest Compliment I Can By Saying That, From First To Last, I Never Stopped Fearing It.

One Of The Most Important Things In Politics Is You've Got To Keep Your Mind Infinitely Curious And Alive To What Is Happening Differently.

Saddam Was A Threat, That The Threat Had To Be Dealt With.

I Have Absolutely No Doubt In My Mind That The Intelligence Was Genuine.

You Don't Have To Keep Looking At The Future Foreign Policy In Terms, Simply, Of The Past.

People Should Go About Their Daily Lives, To Work, To Live, To Travel, To Shop, To Do The Things People Did In The Same Way As They Did Them Before 11 September.

Actually The Royal Family Were Very Gracious And Good To Me. But I Also Found That The British Establishment Were Never Quite Sure What To Make Of Me. I Was A Labour Figure, But I'd Come From A Very Middle-class Background. In One Sense I Offended Both Traditional Right And Traditional Left. But I Thought That Was No Bad Thing.

Choice Dependent On Wealth; Those Are The Tory Words.

Every So Often, I Feel I Should Graduate To Classical Music, Properly. But The Truth Is, I'm More Likely To Listen To Rock Music.

I'm Afraid That's In The Nature Of Modern Politics - It's As Much Conducted By Abuse As Argument.

Immigration Is Good For A Country. It Brings Fresh Energy.

Be A Doer And Not A Critic.

I Haven't Got The Time To Sit Here Arguing With Someone Whose Idea Of A Coherent Foreign Policy Is What Comes Up In Google When You Type In Peace!

I Am Not Sure That We Would Always Want 16-year-olds To Do All The Things They Can Do. I Am Afraid That I Do Not Agree With The Hon. Gentleman On The Voting Age. I Think That It Should Remain As It Is.

The Threat From Saddam Hussein And Weapons Of Mass Destruction - Chemical, Biological, Potentially Nuclear Weapons Capability - That Threat Is Real.

Mass Destruction

Times Are Tough But They Are Tough Because The Government Is Trying To Do The Right Thing, Whether On Public Service Reform, Education, Health, Anti-social Behaviour And Welfare, Or In Counter-terrorism.

Trending Author

Rebecca Harding Davis

J. B. Priestley

Philip Jose Farmer

Category