Words matter. These are the best Gordon Brown Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I’ve got a job to do.
When you’ve got a society that is diverse, what happens is for a time, the issue is integrating your minorities into that society.
If people are persuaded of the need for education and the need to invest in education, they’re also persuaded of the need not to waste that investment by having low-quality education but to have high-quality education.
Britain should be the world’s number one center for genetic and stem cell research, building on our world leading regulatory regime in the area.
Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of the Second World War could have been very different.
I believe there is a moral sense and a global ethic that commands attention from people of every religion and every faith, and people of no faith. But I think what’s new is that we now have the capacity to communicate instantaneously across frontiers right across the world.
Do you think that I or anybody else who cares about the NHS would stand by and do nothing if we thought the NHS was going to be privatised in Scotland and its funds were going to be cut? Would we stand back and do nothing without a fight? Of course not.
I believe that our vote is both a public duty and a sacred trust.
People have now got the ability to speak to each other across continents: to join with each other in communities that are not based simply on territory, streets, but networks; and you’ve got the possibility of people building alliances right across the world.
Let us think of ourselves not as ‘yes’ and ‘no’ Scots but simply as Scots, and let us be a nation, united again.
The extraordinary summer heatwave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths.
We’ve managed to find a way of making decisions that prevents conflict arising – there has been no war between European members at any point in the last 70 years.
To make Europe more effective is a worthwhile objective. To make Europe less important in your calculations is a big mistake.
Meet the challenges of the time.
There’s no point dwelling on the worst things people have said – there’s a job to do.
I am not going to the House of Lords. Never. That’s not who I am. That’s not where I am.
If our economies are to flourish, if global poverty is to be banished, and if the wellbeing of the world’s people enhanced – not just in this generation but in succeeding generations – we must make sure we take care of the natural environment and resources on which our economic activity depends.
We are being tough in saying it is a duty on the unemployed in future not only to be available for work – and not to shirk work – but also to get the skills for work. That is a new duty we are introducing.
I don’t see politics as one or two people just making or delivering announcements – it’s also about winning public support and the public enthusiasm. You’ve got to win public support.
I think it’s important that people know who you are and… can ask any questions they like about you.
In a global marketplace with its increased insecurities and – indeed often – volatility and instability, national economic stability is at a premium, the precondition for all we can achieve, and no nation can secure the high levels of sustainable investment it needs without both monetary and fiscal stability together.
Why is playing football in Europe considered the pinnacle of our game, yet in other spheres of life, that same phrase – ‘being in Europe’ – is dismissed with suspicion?
You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on, and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken.
You have to live in the future, not the past.
The NHS cannot be privatised if that’s not the will of the Scottish people, and the Scottish health service will have the funding that’s necessary if that’s also the will of the Scottish people.
Our ability to connect as a nation with other nations around the world is enhanced dramatically by the Internet.
Those who write off our European heritage are, at least in part, writing off their own heritage.
In every era, there are only one or two moments when nations come together and reach agreements that make history, because they change the course of history.
I love Scotland; I love the NHS. I was born into the NHS; I grew up in the NHS. My family grew up in the NHS.
The Britain I know is the Britain of Jo Cox. The Britain where people are tolerant and not prejudiced, and where people hate hate.
We must then build a proper relationship between the richest and the poorest countries based on our desire that they are able to fend for themselves with the investment that is necessary in their agriculture, so that Africa is not a net importer of food, but an exporter of food.
We spend more on cows than the poor.
The British economy of the future must be built not on the shifting sands of boom and bust, but on the bedrock of prudent and wise economic management for the long term. It is only these firm foundations that we can raise Britain’s underlying economic performance.
In 2005 we have a once in a generation opportunity to deliver a modern Marshall plan for the developing world.
Each year India and China produce four million graduates compared with just over 250,000 in Britain.
Foreign policy can no longer be the province of just a few elites.
When people criticise you, you’ve got to listen to that criticism, and to learn from it, which I’ve tried to do.
Nigel Farage wanted to privatise the health service. Nigel Farage does not believe in the values we believe in for our public services.
It is not a mistake to want power.
Britain must lead in Europe to intensify the fight against global terrorism and make our country safer.
Take, therefore, what modern technology is capable of: the power of our moral sense allied to the power of communications and our ability to organize internationally. That, in my view, gives us the first opportunity as a community to fundamentally change the world.
You need in the long run for stability, for economic growth, for jobs, as well as for financial stability, global economic institutions that make sure that growth to be sustained has to be shared, and are built on the principle that the prosperity of this world is indivisible.
Getting married has certainly made a massive difference to my own life. So I am committed to giving support for family finances and having the right policies for work-life balance that make it easier for couples to have a rich family life.
People believe in the power of education to change lives.
The best way of realising our high ideals is to show that we have an alternative in government that is credible, that is radical, and is electable – is neither a pale imitation of what the Tories offer nor is it the route to being a party of permanent protest rather than a party of government.
Stability is necessary for our future economic success.
A woman said to me, ‘You’re better than your successor.’ She then said she’s lived under 10 prime ministers, and each was worse than the last. That put me in my place.
Other prime ministers leave office and stay in London. I have come back with my whole family to Fife. This is where they are being brought up. It is better for them and better for me. It’s great to see more of the kids.
The motto of the old order in the City of London was, ‘My word is my bond,’ but the financial crisis revealed a culture quite alien to that heritage. The stewards of people’s money were revealed to have been speculators with it.
Making the desirable possible requires us to make the desirable popular, electable, credible, and something that people want to hold on to.
I hate prejudice, discrimination, and snobbishness of any kind – it always reflects on the person judging and not the person being judged. Everyone should be treated equally.
If you take energy and climate change, you really cannot deal with the problems with energy and climate change without European co-operation at a high level. If you take digitalisation, it’s an obvious area where European co-operation can actually make a difference.
When I lost the sight of my eye and faced the prospect of going blind, my sight was saved by the NHS.
There is nothing that you could say to me now that I could ever believe.
Globalisation feels like a runaway train, out of control.
You can’t just vote for yourself. All the time, you’re thinking what sort of country, what world, what future?
I think fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers – we should look at what young people are saying to us.
It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.
Every country is going to have to face up to globalisation, but Scotland has got a unique capacity because of its history as part of a multinational state to help us deal with that problem.
Our common realm is not and cannot be stripped of values – I absolutely reject the idea that religion should somehow be tolerated but not encouraged in public life.
Pages: 1 2