Top 66 Jess Phillips Quotes

If the internet has taught me anything it is that people are either heroes or they belong in the bin.

The politics of hope is harder to spread than the politics of hate.

I made a decision to stop feeling envious of other people, to crack on with my life and stop comparing myself with others.

The trouble for lots of politicians is they worry so much about everybody liking every single thing that they do.

When your worldview is challenged, you’d be surprised how quickly you can find a way to dismiss reality.

As a woman, I don’t trust Boris Johnson with my rights and that’s largely because of the things that he has said and done in his political life.

Any MP who deals with immigration a huge amount, which I do, is going to worry about giving powers to the executive to change immigration law without scrutiny.

In an election campaign, sleep is for the weak.

I enjoy taking people on on Twitter, because often I’m cleverer and funnier.

My childhood dream was to be prime minister.

I don’t think Jeremy Corbyn hates women – I don’t think Jeremy hates anyone. Spend even one minute with him and you would want to take him down to the pub and sink a pint of mild with the man. However, in the hard left of British politics lurks a gruesome misogyny.

I hate when people send me LinkedIn requests.

Our challenge is to restore both trust in Labour as a party of government and trust in democracy as the best means of delivering what the public wants.

I would do whatever I could to make Jeremy Corbyn more electable, but you’ve got to give me something to work with, mate.

I have not always behaved well. I can admit that. I get things wrong, I learn.

The Labour party is not perfect but I have seen in my own life how it is the greatest vehicle for positive hopeful social change.

I am not into self-exploration. My family would lose their eyes in the backs of their heads if people talked about personal journeys or finding oneself.

My family is just like most other families – we rise and fall on good and bad government policy. Politics affects us all.

When you’re left on the floor of a hospital gasping for breath, or you can’t get your kid a school place, the simplest things are your idea of radical.

We’ve all got to discover the courage to ask the difficult questions about the future of our party and the future of the working-class communities who need a Labour government.

I do find it funny, actually, why I’m not more of a Corbyn fan. I am a classic Corbyn fan, really. Not so much on the foreign policy, but I’m leftwing, pro-immigration, pro-welfare spending, there’s very little that we wouldn’t agree on.

Anyone standing for leader of the Labour party has a responsibility to speak truth, because without that we will never win power.

I’m a believer in forgiveness. I have worked with people who have been in gangs and now dedicate their lives to helping inner city kids. I’ve run offender services with teachings of responsibility, empathy and understanding of the victims at their heart. I’ve seen people change.

In the world of fiction, politics usually appears considerably more exciting than it is.

To be honest, I’ve always been forthright.

I’m stunned at the amount of young women who get in touch with me every single day, trying to become somebody like me. As a teenager, I would never have done that. And I was someone who was interested in politics. But I wouldn’t have emailed the local MP.

I think power will do anything to survive and one of its main techniques is the rule of exceptions. So it makes an exception out of people and we worship them, whether that’s Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. These people become beatified beyond recognition.

Pressure and protest is fine, but using fear and threats to force politicians to sing to a certain tune will be the death of our democracy.

I was never a ringleader, but I was willing, when asked questions, to give my opinion. And when you say things quite bluntly, it’s very easy for people to hang their hats on that.

I had pneumonia when I was 18 months old and I was given penicillin, which I was allergic to, and since then my teeth have been yellow.

Ah, well, I do think the generation that came after me has changed. I think there is a growing sense that young women should like themselves a bit more.

My favourite film is probably ‘Star Wars’. I do love ‘Starship Troopers’, it is a great film but it’s not a film I watch over and over again. Whereas ‘Star Wars’ I’ve watched over and over again all my life, and it’s a film I can tolerate watching with my children.

I’ve made a career out of being able to talk about difficult things, and that comes from growing up in an environment where nothing was embarrassing.

To liberate women and end violence is to break down the culture of power imbalance.

All my life I’ve been interested in politics. I went on the miners march when I was six months old. My parents are really political.

Regardless of how people love to deride politicians, democracy is not an easy gig. My decisions, views and heartfelt principles are dismissed by so many as careerist, opportunist or attention-seeking.

When working at Women’s Aid, I met countless women whose families had not believed them when they spoke of their abuse at the hands of another loved one.

The NHS was hard to deliver, so was the minimum wage. It’s time now – we need to have a proper conversation about how much is the individual cost, how much is the burden that we’re all going to share together, and how much are we going to put on older adults now versus a future system like national insurance.

Being in France means that I am surrounded by examples of nationalised services that work.

There’s not a single diet I haven’t been on.

I don’t know how all of my friends vote; it doesn’t come up. But it would be a lie to say that I don’t surround myself with people who have a similar moral code to mine.

My mum taught me the power of protest.

I am Left-wing. I am a socialist. I believe in sharing wealth. There’s no two ways about it.

I was politically complacent during the Blair years. Things were good and people thought things would be good forever.

Rhe language of politics is experienced by most as spin with the assumption of dishonesty.

My paternal grandma was a raving Thatcherite, one who had a xenophobic turn of phrase for most proceedings.

Ken Livingstone appears incapable of contrition. That is why he must be thrown out of the Labour party. He is so certain he is right about everything, he won’t come close to change.

For a party of the left to win, people have to have believe that government, the state, can be on their side. When I was a young mother, Sure Start and tax credits weren’t just a financial lifeline, they represented hope.

The fact that I stick up for women doesn’t mean that I think all men are rapists. But that’s lost somewhere in translation. Obviously I don’t think that. I married one! I gave birth to two of them.

Boris Johnson needs to be challenged, with passion, heart and precision.

As a mother, I want the very best for my children. As a politician, I want what is best for all children.

Every day I receive messages that I’m not good enough, that I should lose my job.

I’ve never bent the knee to anyone in my life.

We have got to be brave and bold and bring people with us, not try and look all ways. Trying to please everyone usually means we have pleased no one.

One of the things I want to achieve in the potentially short time I’m in Westminster is to stop people thinking we’re all the same. Because while they believe that, the establishment stays in the same people’s hands.

Every time I speak out about anything feminist I will be shot down by people calling me fat, calling me stupid. And it’s all because I am speaking from a feminist perspective.

I like to go camping with my kids. I’ve got an amazing group of friends. Just like any 30-year-old woman I like to go out dancing, eating food, drinking with my mates, like any normal person.

Political books are so often written from the perspective of the politicians, not from the point of view of the people.

In every single place I have campaigned in and every single place I have lived, people want some fairly basic things. They want to believe that they are safe, they want to know that their children will be educated and that if they are ill, they will be made better.

But when I’m asked a question I will answer it honestly. There is no spin here.

In short, that politicians do or don’t have families should no longer have any bearing on their abilities to hold office or to care more or less about the future of the country.

I was born in Birmingham and raised in Birmingham.

I am a party worker ant – always have been, always will be.

I loathe and detest people who pretend they don’t care what people think about them as if that is a virtue, when it is simply rude.

Today we’re more distanced from each other, the bonds formed at the local shop replaced by the massive supermarket or the stressed driver thrusting a package through a letterbox. Instead of meeting in pubs, more of us sit at home with supermarket wine and Netflix.